Because I Knew You
by prettyfreakinsweet
Summary: AU- What would have happened if Blaine had been at McKinley in season one? Lots of things, as it turns out.
1. Pilot & Showmance

**Hi! I posted this story a few months ago on my tumblr, and now I'm getting around to posting it here, after cleaning it up a bit. I'm gonna do (mostly) a chapter an episode, which is different than what I did on tumblr, but it just feels cleaner doing it that way here. And I'm posting them all at once, since it's all finished anyway.**

**This chapter has my take on Pilot as well as Showmance, because my Showmance chapter was ridiculously short.**

**Enjoy!**

"Looks like you need to wash your hair, loser." Strong hands gripped Blaine by the shoulders and directed him towards the boy's bathroom.

"No, please. I'm going to be late to French class." He wriggled and struggled in Noah Puckerman's grasp, the other jocks laughing behind them. Puck pushed him into an open stall and kicked the lid of the toilet up with the toe of his boot.

"I don't think your teacher will want your greasy head in class, anyway," Puck retorted, shoving Blaine's face close enough to the toilet water that he could feel the coolness of it against his cheek.

"Any last words?" Finn Hudson asked, reaching for the handle.

Blaine squeezed his eyes shut, absolutely despising them because for the first two weeks he'd been at the school, he'd worn his hair loose and curly, and all they'd done was toss gum in it, and then he finally started gelling it down in retaliation, and he got _this_ for his efforts.

"Bullying me won't make your parents love you," he muttered, because nothing he said could make this any worse.

They laughed, and he had just enough time to gasp down a gulp of air before his head was dunked underwater.

And then the flush.

* * *

"Tu es en retard, Monsier Anderson."

"Je suis desolé, Madame," Blaine mumbled his apology after walking into class about fifteen minutes after the bell.

Telling her students that they were late to class was one of the one of the few French sentences that Blaine's French teacher knew. He suspected that just like 'Señor' Schuester, 'Madame' Jenkins was learning the language right along with her students.

"Don't let it happen again," she said, as if proving his point. He slid into his seat next to Kurt Hummel as she continued, "As I was saying, read through the exercises in the textbook with a partner. Commencez-vous!"

"Qu'est-ce que s'est passé?" Kurt asked, twisting his body in his chair to face Blaine. Kurt was the only kid in class, possibly the school, that took the language seriously. Blaine found it as annoying as he did commendable.

"Swirlie," he said, opening his textbook to the same page everyone else was ignoring. "I was lucky I had emergency gel in my locker."

Kurt grimaced in commiseration. He was also labelled as a loser by the jocks, and therefore had to suffer much of the same humiliation and torture that Blaine did.

"Ils m'ont jetté dans la poubelle ce matin," he said in response.

"What?" Blaine asked. He didn't know how Kurt was so good in French while receiving such a crappy education.

"Dumpster toss this morning," he sighed.

"You alright?"

"I guess. Finn let me remove my new jacket before I got thrown in."

"How generous of him," Blaine said sarcastically.

Kurt shrugged, scribbling something down half-heartedly to avoid answering. "Je pense que m'inscrire la chorale," he said at last.

"You're thinking of what?"

"I like singing," he said defensively. Blaine tried to interrupt and explain, but Kurt ignored him. "Make fun of me all you want, but it'll be good for college transcripts and it's a step closer to getting out of this crap town."

"No, I meant that I don't know-"

"I don't hear French," Madame Jenkins said pointedly.

"Neither do I," Kurt muttered, turning his attention back to his book.

"What I meant was-"

"French!" their teacher insisted from the front of the room.

It didn't take Blaine long to figure out what Kurt had been talking about. After informing a very disinterested teacher that bullying had led him to being late, he saw a sign in the hall with the optimistic title of 'New Directions', which had already been scribbled out and replaced with 'Nude Erections'.

Kurt's name, along with four others that Blaine recognized as being at the bottom of the food chain as well, were the only people signed up for the new glee club, led by… Mr. Schuester.

"Ugh," he muttered. He wished Kurt luck in his head.

Still, for a moment he let himself consider writing his name down too, until Puck shoved him into the wall without even looking.

_They all must have some sort of nerd radar or something_, he thought to himself as he rubbed his sore nose.

* * *

"So, I know you made fun of me for wanting to join-" Kurt began, sidling up to Blaine as he retrieved books from his locker.

"I did no such thing-"

"-but I think you should join, too," he finished with a decisive nod.

"And I think I'm not going to do that. Sorry," Blaine replied.

"Why not? I know you can sing." In a slightly misguided attempt to make her students more interested in French culture, Madame Jenkins had systematically been bringing in French music and trying to make them sing along. Blaine could barely understand the language, but he could sing it just fine.

"You're much better than I am. I'm sure you guys can manage without me," he assured him.

"Well. I'm not going to argue a compliment, but you should still consider joining. New Directions has the distinct possibility of actually being _cool_."

Blaine snorted. "How do you figure? I mean, singing and dancing is great and all, but the jocks don't even like it when you wear women's sweaters, Kurt."

His face bloomed red. "Fashion has no gender," he snapped.

"I didn't say it did." Blaine held up his hands placatingly.

Kurt crossed his arms, jaw tense. "Anyway, now that Finn Hudson's joined, things might just change around here."

"Finn Hudson? Oh god, now I'm definitely not joining," he scoffed.

His face morphed into one of indignation. "And why not?"

He looked at him in disbelief. "Are you nuts? Kurt, he threw you into a dumpster."

"His _friends_ did."

He stared into the depths of his locker like it held the secrets of the universe and then said, "I know there's a quote about judging a person based on the friends he keeps, and there's another about judging him not on how he treats his friends but his inferiors." He shut his locker and finished, "Either way, Finn fails the test because his friends are assholes and he slushied me this morning. So."

He raised his eyebrows in a 'there you have it' gesture and walked off.

* * *

"Don't you have glee practice?" Blaine asked Kurt a few days later. It was the end of the day and the other boy was dressed in a red shirt and black pants and walking in the opposite direction of the choir room.

Kurt heaved a huge sigh. "Schuester is leaving the school to get a higher paying job as an accountant," he rolled his eyes. "And no other teacher will touch this club with a hundred foot pole thanks to Coach Sylvester, so glee's over."

"I'm sorry, Kurt," he said sincerely.

He gave him a haughty look. "You don't care about glee."

"Well, I guess not, but you were enjoying yourself, so it really sucks that it has to end now."

His face softened just a bit and he said, "You know Blaine, sometimes I think you're the only person in this entire school that understands the concept of empathy."

He grinned. "Thanks. Hey, do you wanna get a coffee or something?"

"Actually, Rachel has insisted that we do one last hurrah in the auditorium. If you enjoy 80's classics performed show choir style, you're welcome to watch."

* * *

Blaine snuck into the back of the auditorium and watched the small glee club sing their hearts out one last time. They were surprisingly good for only being together a week. Blaine would have preferred Kurt to have lead of course, but that might have been his natural prejudice against Finn more than anything.

When they finished, Schuester applauded and critiqued them, apparently back for good.

Blaine was just about to leave when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Noah Puckerman exiting the theatre. He also heard noise from above and turned to see the swish of Cheerio skirts leaving the alcove up high.

What the hell was going on with this club?

* * *

**Showmance**

"Can I take back every bad thing I've said about disco this week?" Kurt groaned as he sunk into his seat next to Blaine in French.

"If you want, yeah," he said, smiling a bit at Kurt's dramatics as he laid his head against his arms on his desk.

"I take it back," he promised gravely. "The harpy that chooses to call itself Rachel has staged a coup over the assembly performance and now… Oh Blaine, I only pray that you don't judge me once you see what we're doing."

"But I was so excited for disco!" he almost whined.

"I'll say again, you should really consider joining. You'd get along great with Schue."

"Ugh," he rolled his eyes. "I dunno Kurt, all your complaining isn't really filling me with a desire to join."

He sat up straight, pulling out his text book. "Well if you don't want to listen, fine."

"No Kurt I- ugh."

He'd only been at McKinley for a few weeks, but he already knew how defensive Kurt could be. And he couldn't really blame him. It's not like McKinley was a breeding ground for nice people.

* * *

New Direction's rendition of 'Push It' was a sound success in Blaine's book. Sure, he had second-hand embarrassment watching them do some of the moves, and a bit of first-hand embarrassment from the boner trying to rise in his pants, but being able to watch Kurt's hips move like that definitely made it worth it.

The whole performance was undoubtedly inappropriate for a school setting, but the audience really liked it, and the glee club didn't get fruit thrown at them, which was what was important.

Later that day, Blaine caught up with Kurt at his locker with Mercedes. "Hey Kurt."

"Oh hi Blaine," he said, turning away from his conversation with his fellow glee club member. "How are you?"

"Good. Hi Mercedes," he said politely before looking back to Kurt. "I just wanted to congratulate you on a great performance at the assembly."

"What?"

"I really enjoyed it," he reiterated. "I mean, I know you didn't have any solo lines but, you know, as a group I thought you guys did a great job."

His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Well, um, it was really…" HOT. About as hot as his face as he frantically tried to think of another descriptor. "Fun to watch."

There. That was a reasonable enough response.

"Fun to watch us make fools of ourselves," Kurt muttered. "Coach Sylvester almost had us banned."

"It's all Rachel's fault," Mercedes said. "The girl is _psycho_."

"Did anyone else at least seem interested in joining?"

"Just Quinn and some of her cronies so she can keep an eye on Rachel's hideous attempts at seducing Finn," Kurt replied.

"But you should join," Mercedes said to Blaine. "It's pretty fun if you can look past all the crazy."

Kurt's eyes widened at something behind Blaine and Mercedes' backs and Blaine turned around just in time to get a face full of slushie.

Blaine wiped his eyes of ice as the jocks walked away laughing. "I think I'll take a rain check," he gasped, face freezing.

**Also, in case you're wondering, the occasional French is just shameless self-indulgence on my part. I'm pretty sure you can figure out the gist of what Kurt's saying from the context, but if you're super lost just ask me :) **

**Anyway, I hope you like it so far!**


	2. Acafellas

Kurt was gazing into space as Blaine sat next to him at their shared library table. Everyone but the two of them was using their allotted library research time to play paper football.

"What are you thinking about?" Blaine asked, glancing at the sparse notes Kurt's had taken so far.

"Have you ever kissed anybody?" he asked, still staring at nothing.

Blaine nearly choked on his own spit. That was the _last_ thing he'd expected Kurt to say. "Um, well no. Why uh, why do you ask?"

He turned to look at him, shrugging. "I guess I'm just wondering if it'll ever happen to me at this rate."

Blaine was totally prepared to kiss him right then and there except for the fact that they were in public and he wasn't completely sure if Kurt was actually gay. He knew Kurt hadn't come to that conclusion yet, and he didn't want to assume. Plus, Blaine himself wasn't even out at McKinley. It hadn't worked out too well at his last school, and he got harassed enough with people thinking he was straight, so he hadn't bothered coming out of the closet again. He didn't really have a lot of friends to tell anyway.

"I'm sure it will. Everyone gets kissed eventually," he assured him. "And it's not like there's any rush. You have plenty of time for kissing and… whatever."

His cheeks reddened. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"What brought this on?"

"Oh, Mercedes just asked me the same thing earlier today. I think she has a crush on Puck."

Blaine's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "What is _wrong_ with you people? You have to stop idolizing the dickwads that push you around each day!"

"Finn is _not_ that bad!" he groaned, rolling his eyes. "He joined glee club, unlike another person I know," he added, raising a brow at Blaine.

He ignored the jab. "Why do you feel the need to defend him? He's treated you like shit for a year, and it's not much better now, even if he is part of the same club as you."

"People change, Blaine. And you don't even know him! Why do you get to judge him, just based off-"

"His repeated actions of intolerance?" Blaine finished for him. "What the hell else should I judge him on, Kurt? His polos?"

"Shut up, just shut up," he muttered angrily, packing up his books.

"Kurt, no, what are you doing?" he asked, instantly deflating.

"I'm not getting any work done here," he hissed. "I'm moving."

"I'm sorry," he tried to protest, but he was already stomping off. "Shit," he sighed.

* * *

"Blaine."

"Oh god," he breathed, looking up at Rachel Berry and that stuttering Goth girl he couldn't remember the name of.

"Can we join you?" Rachel asked, sitting down at his lunch table without waiting for a response. "I'm Rachel Berry, and this is Tina Cohen-Chang."

"We n-n-need to talk to you," Tina said.

"Is this about Kurt?" he asked, knowing in his gut that this conversation couldn't possibly turn out well.

"Yes, it is. We have some questions-"

"Look, I've tried apologizing to him, but he hasn't talked to me in two days. I'm just gonna give him some time and hope he forgets about it," he cut in, hands raised.

"W-wait, what?" Tina asked.

"Are you two fighting?" Rachel asked intently.

"I guess," he shrugged. "Why, what were you going to ask me?"

"I wanted to confirm my suspicion that Kurt is gay."

Blaine choked on his apple juice. "Sorry, what?" he coughed, eyes watering.

"Kurt's g-g-gay, right?" Tina asked.

"How should I know? Furthermore, I don't think it's any of your business, you should probably ask- actually, no, don't ask him because yeah, other peoples' sexualities are none of your business unless they choose to tell you," he said.

"Oh, but it's a very important matter, Blaine!" Rachel insisted. "Mercedes thinks she's dating Kurt."

Blaine took a deep breath. "Okay, unless that sprouted up in the last two days, I can tell you that Kurt is not aware that he is supposed to be dating her. He was under the impression she had a crush on Puck. Don't ask me why, that was right before we fought so I don't know."

Rachel groaned. "Ugh, I wish Mercedes would listen to me!"

"C-can you talk to Kurt?" Tina implored.

"Guys, he's mad at me-"

"Please Blaine, without proper communication this is just going to get _worse_ and I don't want relationship drama ruining my glee club," Rachel said.

Tina and Blaine both laughed derisively at that.

"What?"

* * *

Rachel and Tina eventually convinced him to talk to Kurt, however much good that would do. He looked all over school at the end of the day, only to find the entire glee club, plus Cheerios, in the parking lot washing cars.

_That would have been helpful information_, he thought, rolling his eyes at Rachel and Tina in his mind.

"Um, Kurt?" he said tentatively, standing next to him as he washed the hood of his massive car.

He turned his head and raised a bitch brow in response.

"I'm done with the rims, Kurt," Mercedes announced, popping up from the other side of the car.

"Um, can I talk to you for a moment in private please?" Blaine asked him.

He sighed. "I suppose."

Blaine grinned at him brightly, leading him away as Mercedes shot death glares at him.

"Okay so first of all, I'd like to apologize again about what I said about Finn. I guess he's your friend? And teammate? And so the things I said about him were probably out of line. And you're right, I guess I don't really know him," he said, mostly just to placate Kurt. Like, he understood he shouldn't get mad at Kurt about how much of a dick Finn is, even if he didn't like him. He just wouldn't mention that to Kurt.

Kurt nodded jerkily. "I accept your apology."

He heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Great. So, friends again?"

He looked at the ground briefly and then back at Blaine face. "We were friends before?"

Blaine's stomach dropped. "I- I thought so. Weren't we?"

"If you say so."

"I do?" he asked uncertainly.

"Okay," he nodded. "Friends again, then. Is that all?"

"No, um are you dating Mercedes?" he asked, deciding to just jump right in.

His face scrunched up. "No," he laughed. "Why would you think that?"

"Mercedes thinks you are."

The smile melted off his face. "She does not."

"Yes, apparently so. Rachel and Tina came to me with their concerns earlier today. I just thought you should know. I have a feeling that when she finds out the contrary, things could get ugly."

"What the hell am I supposed to tell her?" he asked in a higher voice than usual. "Why does she think that, girls are so confusing oh my god."

"Break it to her gently?" Blaine suggested. "Maybe mention what a great _friend_ she is. Ask her if she has a crush on anybody."

Kurt nodded, breathing deeply. "Right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Blaine."

"No problem," he said. It was weird to see Kurt so uncomposed. He usually held himself like he was a king, and all the people surrounding him were just peasants lucky enough to share the same air as him. "It's okay, Kurt. Just be honest."

"Honest, right," he laughed awkwardly, turning around to head back to Mercedes and his car.

Blaine watched as Kurt said something to her and her face wrinkled in confusion. Kurt shook his head and said something else and Mercedes looked incredibly disappointed before she stalked away.

"There, that wasn't too bad, right?" Blaine asked, joining him at his car.

Kurt nodded. "I guess."

Blaine smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "Coffee later?" he asked.

"I don't drink coffee," he said, still a bit dazed.

"Okay."

* * *

"Blaine?" Kurt said in a small voice at the end of the next day.

"Yeah?" Blaine stopped at his locker as he was passing.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked quietly, eyes flickering around the emptying hallway. He looked even more uncomfortable than yesterday when Blaine told him about Mercedes. He actually looked kind of scared.

"Yeah of course," he said, putting a hand on his elbow and leading him into an empty classroom. "What's wrong?"

"Um, you said we're friends, right?" he said, blue eyes wide.

"Yeah, yeah we're friends," he nodded earnestly, getting a bit nervous himself.

"And friends tell each other stuff?"

"Yes."

"Okay, it's just yesterday I-" he rubbed his brow, staring at the ground. "You won't tell anybody?"

"No, not if you don't want me to," he promised.

He took a deep, stuttering breath. "Well, there's a reason I would never date Mercedes, and it's not because her fashion sense sometimes leaves something to be desired."

Blaine kind of laughed, because that's obviously what Kurt was going for.

"I'm gay," he whispered, eyes finally flicking up to meet his.

He nodded calmly before realizing he should say something. He knew exactly what he wanted to hear, because it was what Blaine wanted to hear every time he told somebody the same thing. Except it all kind of burbled out of his mouth jumbled when he saw the tears shining in Kurt's eyes.

"That's okay. It's great. We're still friends. You're the same person. It's okay."

He tightened his jaw, nodding stiffly, and Blaine wrapped his arms around him.

"You're hugging me," he stated dumbly.

"Is that okay?" He realized he really hadn't touched Kurt much up until then, and he might not welcome it, but he was of the belief that hugs made almost everything better so he hadn't really thought about it.

"Yeah," he breathed, slowly sliding his arms around Blaine's waist.

Blaine rubbed his back, and he could feel Kurt's eyelashes fluttering against his temple as he blinked.

"I'm gay," Kurt said again. "And you're hugging me."

"Yeah."

"Nobody hugs me," he admitted in a quick breath.

Blaine held him tighter.

Kurt swallowed thickly and then pulled back. "Thank you," he said, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.

"You're welcome," he said. He steeled himself and added, "And um, Kurt? I'm gay too."

His eyes widened. "What?"

"Yeah," he said, fiddling with his watch. "I kind of got beat up at my last school for it, so I haven't come out of the closet here, but yeah. I'm gay."

"Oh. Okay. Wow." He looked him over with wide eyes, like he was seeing him for the first time.

"Yup."

"Have you told your dad?"

"Yeah."

"What did he say?"

Blaine bit his lip. "He said he was okay with it. He's currently making me rebuild a car with him. And he keeps asking me if I've met any nice girls at McKinley. So," he shrugged. "I'm hoping he'll get used to it."

"Well that's not too bad," Kurt said lightly.

"You haven't told your dad yet?"

He shook his head. "He's all I have. I can't lose him."

"You won't," he said immediately.

Kurt didn't look entirely convinced.


	3. Preggers

**Here's Preggers! A very fun ep to reimagine. Hope you like it!**

Blaine was _very_ happy he'd been invited to play camera man for Kurt's 'Single Ladies' performance at his house.

"All the single ladies, all the single ladies," Blaine sang along under his breath as he directed the camera to Kurt, Brittany, and Tina dancing. "All the-"

"Blaine, I don't need you singing along on the tape. Just Beyoncé, thanks. If you wanna sing, join glee club."

"It's really fun!" Brittany nodded.

"I'll stick to camera man," he replied. "Sorry. From the top?"

He started the song over, ignoring Kurt's annoyed glare, and started filming again.

Kurt was a very good dancer. And he was wearing a _great_ outfit. He wondered if Kurt would be willing to send him a copy of the tape once they were finished.

"Hey Blaine, do you wanna t-t-take my spot?" Tina asked once they'd gone over it again. "You m-must know the dance b-by now, right?"

"Tina, I knew the dance before I got here," Blaine laughed. "And I would be honoured to stand in for you if Kurt will allow it."

"I suppose I have enough footage of us. We could do one just for fun," he nodded.

Blaine grinned, leaving Tina the camera and standing behind Kurt and a little to his left. "Can I sing?" Blaine asked.

Kurt raised a brow at him over his shoulder. "I guess we can all sing."

Dancing and singing with Kurt was even more fun than watching him. Blaine threw his hips around a bit too much on purpose, pouting his lips and waving his arms around like an idiot, making Kurt smile in amusement. Blaine always felt like he'd accomplished a great feat if he was able to make Kurt smile.

Suddenly the music cut off and Blaine's gaze cut from Kurt's face to a man in a plaid shirt and a baseball cap, looking at the quartet in confusion.

"Dad," Kurt breathed, eyes cutting to Blaine briefly.

Blaine wasn't sure what Kurt wanted him to do, but with an adult present his manners kicked in. "Hi Mr. Hummel, I'm Blaine Anderson," he said, stepping forward with his hand outstretched.

"Call me Burt, kid," he said unsurely, shaking his hand. "Why aren't you wearing a leotard like the rest of them?"

"It's a unitard," Kurt interjected. "Guys wear them to work out nowadays."

"I was the camera man before, that was just for fun," Blaine explained, waving a hand behind him to indicate the dance they'd just been doing.

Mr. Hummel stepped forward towards Kurt and snapped the front of his shirt, forehead furrowing as he nodded to himself slowly.

"F-f-football," Tina offered helpfully.

"Oh yeah, all the football guys wear them," Blaine said. If everyone else was going to lie, he might as well add something.

"They're very jock chic," Kurt nodded.

"Yeah. Kurt's on the football team, now," Brittany nodded. "A kicker, that's the smallest guy on the field, right?"

Blaine face-palmed behind Mr. Hummel's back while Kurt shot her an incredulous look.

And then he _went along with it_. "Yeah, they're helping me with some conditioning work."

Mr. Hummel nodded and turned to Blaine. "You on the team, too?"

"Yep!" Kurt answered for him. "Yes, Blaine is also on the football team."

"What position?"

"Water boy," he lied through his teeth, glaring at Kurt.

He let out a high-pitched laugh. "Don't be modest, you have an actual position. It's, uh, quarterback?"

"Running back," Blaine corrected sourly. "_Finn_ is quarterback. Most important part of the offense."

Mr. Hummel nodded and commented how he played football in high school too.

"Cool. I guess we'll have something to talk about then," Kurt said and did another really awkward laugh.

"Yeah. Are uh, you guys their girlfriends, then?" he asked Brittany and Tina.

Kurt opened his mouth but Blaine replied for him before he could say anything else stupid. "No, just friends. They're in glee club with Kurt."

"You're not?" he asked, rising an eyebrow.

"Performing's not really my thing," he lied again.

"Sure looked like it was," he commented.

"Yeah well, that was for fun. Kurt's much braver than me in that respect. They're all going to Sectionals soon and performing in front of hundreds of people. Not for me," he lied- for the fourth time? He was never lying to an adult again, it was way too nerve-wracking.

"Alright. Well just uh, keep the music down," he said, heading back upstairs. "Oh and Kurt, let me know when these 'Sectionals' are. And get me a ticket to your first game."

Kurt nodded and smiled, before it seemed to crack in two when he realized what that entailed.

"Kurt!" Blaine groaned as soon as he was sure Mr. Hummel was out of ear shot. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"I panicked, okay? What did you expect me to say?"

"The _truth_- that you like singing and dancing and Beyoncé?" he shot back incredulously. "Or that you were practicing something for glee club? Like- _seriously_? _Football_? _Why_?"

"That was Brittany, that was not me," he said, holding up a hand.

"Why'd you tell him _I_ was on the team too?" he whined

"So you can help me convince Coach Tanaka to let us both on the team," he replied confidently.

"No, you're gonna tell your dad what you just said wasn't true," Blaine tried to argue.

He shook his head. "Pretty sure my plan is easier."

"You're insane."

"You're still doing this with me."

* * *

"Okay, so I'm your friend and I'll do anything for you, but it's part of my friendship duties to explain to you the multitude of reasons why your plan is disastrous."

Kurt and Blaine were on their way to the football field, and Blaine was trying to convince him to forget about joining the team.

"You'll do anything for me?" Kurt asked with a raised brow.

Blaine ignored him. "First of all, you didn't know anything about football until we practiced last night."

He scoffed. "I'm a fast learner."

"Second, you have a very small build for a football player." He looked even smaller than usual today in his oversized red t-shirt and black yoga pants.

"That's what the padding is for," he dismissed with a wave of his hand.

"Third of all, _I_ have a very small build for a football player."

"You're getting padding, too. Plus, I saw you running around last night, you're like a jack rabbit."

He sighed. "Fourthly, the team is full of the guys who have been picking on you since forever."

"If we're teammates they'll have to at _least_ tolerate me during practice and games," he replied.

"Are you sure about that?" he pressed. "Because I'm _pretty_ sure that Finn got slushied for joining glee, and they actually like him."

They stopped at the edge of the field. "It doesn't really matter what they do, because my dad thinks I'm on the football team. So I'm going to have to get onto the football team," he said defiantly, hands on his hips.

"Fifth, you are lying to your dad about this."

"It won't be a lie for very much longer," he replied, before catching sight of a footballer. "Finn, hi!" he yelled, running up to him.

"Wait, what? _Finn_?" Blaine demanded indignantly as he reluctantly followed.

"Yeah, I told him I was planning on joining," he replied happily.

Blaine bit his tongue to prevent his sixth point against this plan from slipping past his lips.

"Why?" he asked instead.

"Because we're teammates in glee. And now we're going to be teammates in football!"

He groaned low in his throat.

"Uh hey Kurt," Finn said, face a mix of awkwardness and confusion, as per usual. "Hi… uh?"

"Blaine Anderson." He gave a short nod.

"Cool. You wanna play football too?"

"Oh yeah. It's my passion," he said with a blank face.

Kurt elbowed him in the side and gave him a significant look. He shut his mouth.

"Kay so, you know how to play football?" he asked unsurely.

He nodded. "And I taught Kurt how to play yesterday. Sorta."

"Right. Okay. So, the season's kind of already started-"

"But you guys suck anyway, so I doubt it will be a problem," Blaine cut in.

"Blaine!" Kurt hit him in the arm.

"Um right…" Finn trailed off, frowning. "Let's go see the coach."

They followed him to where Coach Tanaka was shouting at various players from the middle of the field.

"Who the hell are these guys?" the Coach Tanaka asked gruffly. His sudden blow of a whistle left Blaine wincing. "Azimio! Hustle, hustle! This is why we're losing!"

"In all fairness, you're losing because of your poor strategic planning," Blaine interjected.

"_Who_ are you?" he repeated.

"I'm Kurt Hummel and this is Blaine Anderson. We're here to audition for the football team," Kurt said confidently, sweeping a piece of his hair off his forehead.

Coach Tanaka frowned at Finn. "You know these guys?"

"Uh yeah. Glee club, you know."

He heaved a sigh. "I'm gonna be honest, we can't actually do much worse. So I'm gonna let you try out. Because my life isn't going to get any worse after I laugh at the two of you."

Kurt grinned brightly, his teeth barely showing. "My music," he directed, nodding to Blaine.

"Wait, what?" Finn asked, distressed.

Blaine set the stereo he'd been carrying on the ground and by the time he had the music ready, the rest of the football team had stopped practicing and was gathered around them.

"Homo Hummel wants to join the team?" one of them scoffed. Blaine could practically feel their derision.

"You ready Kurt?" Blaine called to Kurt, ignoring the jeers.

"Lights, camera."

"Action," Blaine muttered, pressing the play button.

Kurt seemed to have a knack for being good at anything he put his mind to. This included kicking a football, as long as he danced along to 'Single Ladies' first. His methods were unconventional, but not even the homophobic assholes heckling him could argue with the results.

Coach Tanaka raced over to Kurt after the football sailed through the goalposts and welcomed him to the team. Kurt waved at the gobsmacked jocks like the royalty he was.

"And you?" the coach turned to Blaine. "What's your position?"

"Running back," he shrugged. It's what he'd played in pee-wee football, but he didn't really need to join. He figured his job was done; Kurt was on the team, he didn't need to do anything else.

"We kind of have enough of those."

"I'm not joining unless Blaine does!" Kurt piped up.

Blaine gaped at his friend.

Coach Tanaka took off his cap and wiped a hand over his face, thinking. "Run a couple laps. If you finish them without fainting, you can join."

Kurt squealed excitedly, throwing his arms around Blaine's neck. "We're on the team!"

* * *

Blaine was a few minutes late getting to the locker room for football practice, because his weekly meeting with the useless principal telling him all the bullying he'd endured lately had taken a turn for the worst when Figgins found out he'd joined the team of his tormentors.

He'd realized quickly that relating his constant harassments to the administration was just as hopeless as it had been at his last school, but he refused to stop. He kept thinking that maybe with sheer persistence alone he'd finally get through to the teachers. So far it hadn't been working, but Blaine never seemed to be out of grievances to list, so he kept trying.

Every time he walked into the locker room he felt wary, like he didn't belong and had no right to be there. Which was pretty true. Kurt was _so_ lucky that Blaine was such a great friend.

He rounded a row of lockers to find Puck dangling one of Kurt's scarves above his head, making him jump for it. The rest of the team was laughing and looking on in various states of undress.

Blaine glared at Finn, watching from the end of the aisle, looking guilty but scared at the same time. The taller boy ducked his head and Blaine sighed before jumping onto the bench behind Puck and grabbing the scarf out of his hand.

"What the hell happened to camaraderie among teammates?" he demanded as the other boy turned around in confusion.

"I was just having some fun, man. Don't get your panties twisted," he scoffed, crossing his arms across his broad chest.

"Well I'm sure you've been playing that game since seventh grade. Grow up," he said angrily.

"Big words from such a little guy," he said, moving forward and pushing at Blaine's chest. He tried to take a step back to steady himself, but he was still on the bench and ended up toppling off it into another jock.

"Get off me, homo!" he shouted, shoving Blaine into the locker next to him, his skull banging off the metal.

"Hey!" Kurt yelped in his defense.

Blaine lifted his fists, getting into a defensive position, before a shrill whistle interrupted the shouting.

"Hey!" Coach Tanaka thundered, who had come in to see what was taking them so long to change. "As far as I know, all you idiots are here to play football, not to wrestle, so quit it and get onto the field."

They got dressed in silence, filing out quickly until only Kurt and Blaine were left.

"Thanks," Kurt said quietly, struggling to get the padding over his head.

"No problem." He let his cleat fall from his hand. "Here, let me help you."

"I can do it," he protested, but Blaine had already tugged it until the padding covered his shoulders properly.

"Maybe I wanna help anyway," he grinned, grabbing his jersey. "Arms up."

"I am _not_ five years old," he argued imperiously, crossing his arms.

"Fine," Blaine laughed, throwing it at his head.

"_Hair_!" Kurt reminded him, annoyed.

"Helmet's gonna mess it up anyway," he replied, pulling his shoe on. He waited on the bench quietly as Kurt finished getting dressed. "They think I'm gay."

"You _are_ gay," he retorted, carefully sliding his headband over his hair.

"But they never said anything like that before," he pointed out. He was proud of who he was, but he knew other people weren't and he was scared of a repeat of his last school.

Kurt tied his shoes in silence before admitting, "It's because you're hanging out with me. And while _you_ can slip easily under the radar_, I_ barely have to open my mouth for people to assume things about me. You're just guilty by association."

He clenched his fists in frustration. "There's nothing to be guilty _about_, I just-"

"Blaine, you can quit the team if you want to," Kurt interrupted softly, staring at the floor. "I know I kind of forced you to join in the first place, and it was just because I didn't want to be alone in this. But it's obviously having negative repercussions for you and-"

"Do I look like a quitter to you?" Blaine cut him off. "No, there's no way in hell I'm leaving you by yourself with these guys."

"I appreciate that, but I assure you that I am perfectly capable of holding my own," he said, a hard tone edging into his voice.

"I know. That doesn't change the fact that I got your back," he said, slapping his shoulder and giving him a grin. Kurt's smile twitched back. "Now come on, we're late enough as it is."

* * *

The idea was apparently _Finn's_, of all people. Blaine had no clue how the kid's mind worked, and he had no desire to, but one way or another he'd gotten the entirety of the football team into the choir room, dancing along to the piano.

Kurt sat on a stool, watching them with his chin held high and looking like he was better than all of them, and when Schuester tried to advise them again, Kurt took over.

Luckily Blaine already knew the dance very well, because if he'd actually been trying to learn he'd have failed due to him being largely distracted by Kurt's swaying hips and butt.

Coach Tanaka dismissed them shortly afterwards, and Kurt stepped up to speak with him. Blaine hung back and waited around for Kurt, and was joined by the jock who'd been dancing next to him. He'd been surprisingly into the choreography.

"Hey, it's Blaine, right?"

"Um yes." He wanted to ask why the hell he was talking to him, but he bit his tongue. Even if he couldn't remember this particular jock ever picking on him, you could never be too careful.

The boy heard the unspoken question and smiled. "Mike Chang. You're in glee club, right?"

"Actually I'm not."

His eyebrows rose. "Oh."

And Blaine sighed because if the jocks thought he was in glee he might as _well_ join because not being a part of it wasn't helping him anyway.

"Oh well I was just-" Mike continued, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "Do you know if you need to actually sing well to join?"

"I'm told that Rachel Berry is always on the lookout for back-up vocalists," he replied. "Why do you ask?"

He looked around shiftily. "Can you keep a secret?"

He wanted to respond with 'Not yours', but instead he just nodded.

"I like dancing," he admitted, as if it were one of the top most shameful things he'd ever said.

"Well, if you can manage _not_ to be a dick to all the kids that have finally found a safe place, then glee club is for you," Blaine replied, bidding him a farewell and joining an impatient Kurt at the door.

"What was that about?" Kurt asked curiously as they headed back to the locker room.

"Glee club might be getting a new member. Congrats."

* * *

"J'ai grandes espoires pour la jeu de football ce soir," announced Kurt later that week in French class.

"Something about the football game tonight?" Blaine put together after a moment.

Kurt nodded happily. "I have great hopes. Can you feel it? We're gonna win."

"If we do, it'll be all because of you," he said.

And Kurt's not modest, so he didn't brush off how both his kicking skills and his teaching the team the dance had been a great improvement in just one short week.

"Well, yes," he agreed. "But you've been helping the coach choreograph some routines, right? I'm sure that's helping, too."

"They're called _plays_, Kurt," he corrected with a smile playing on his lips.

He waved a hand dismissively. "The point is, we're the best thing to happen to this team in _years_. The rest of the team has to see that."

* * *

"A gay team. A big gay team of dancing gays."

Blaine watched Kurt's face fall as Puck disregarded Finn's pep talk about coming together as a team the past week.

The others seemed to agree with Puck, the general consensus being that there was no way in hell they'd be performing their dance routine in public.

Finn ignored Kurt's outraged look, and as the rest of the players jogged onto the field, Kurt turned it on Blaine. "Ungrateful wretches," he spat as he threw himself onto the bench.

As the two of them sat out the first few plays, Blaine became ever more grateful that Kurt wasn't on the field. Their team _sucked_, and the defense wasn't doing their job at all.

Between quarters, Blaine went to go talk to Coach Tanaka. "What the hell are they doing? What happened to the plays I was working on with you? This is _bull_."

"I know what I'm doing, Anderson. Take a seat."

_No, you don't know what you're doing. Nobody at this school does._ He grumpily walked back over to Kurt, his mood instantly lifting at the bright smile on Kurt's face while he waved to his father in the stands.

"I told you!" he shouted happily, jumping and tugging on his jersey as proof. "Blaine, it's my dad!"

"Awesome," he said, waving at Mr. Hummel.

"Is yours here?" he asked, throwing his legs up to stretch.

He shook his head. "I didn't mention it to him."

"Why not?"

"It'd just give him hope that I'd turned straight again," he shrugged.

"Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for," Kurt muttered.

"Wh- oh, Kurt," he sighed. "You can't keep pretending forever."

"False. One of my many career aspirations is actor. That's all they do."

He opened his mouth to argue, but a horn blared to sound the beginning of the next period.

"Anderson, get in there!" the coach yelled.

"Blaine, that's you," Kurt prodded him as he tried to sit down on the bench next to Kurt. "He wants you to play."

"Huh?" He turned around to see the coach gesturing him frantically towards the field. "Oh, that's weird," he muttered before jogging to get in place.

He breathed calmly through his nose as the clock ticked down, and just before they were set to start playing, Finn called a time-out.

Blaine held back a groan.

"What the hell are you doing?" Puck asked. For the one and only time, he and Puck were on the same page.

"We gotta do it," Finn said.

"The dance?" Blaine asked, perking up. He looked over at Kurt, watching them closely, and grinned.

"No way," Puck argued. "We'll be jokes for the rest of our high school lives."

"We're already jokes!"

"That's true. There's not a whole lot we have left to lose," Blaine said, nodding. Another first, he was actually on Finn's side.

"Yeah maybe _you _don't," Puck shot at him. "Some of us still have our dignity."

"I think we should do it," Mike's soft voice spoke up. Blaine looked to him in surprise. He hadn't spoken to him again, so he thought he'd decided against making his fondness for dance public. "It's fun, and it's be a great distraction technique. If it'll help us win, why shouldn't we at least try?"

"I agree."

"You can shut your lady lips," Puck bit out before sighing. "You really think this is worth making ourselves the laughingstock of the school?" he asked Finn.

"Better than Lima losers," he insisted.

Which is how Blaine got to bust a move on the football field in front of hundreds of people.

It felt great.

Catching the ball after Finn threw it to him and scoring a touchdown barely compared to the feeling he got from performing in front of an audience.

The crowd went nuts after he scored the point; they were tied now and the Titans had the possibility of winning a game for once.

Kurt skipped onto the field, offering Blaine a tentative high five.

"This means we can win, right?" he asked.

"Just get the ball through the posts," he nodded.

"But no pressure," he rolled his eyes as they got into position.

A short clip of the song played, and then the ball went soaring over their heads, straight through the goal posts. Blaine spun around, practically tackling Kurt in a hug. The crowd roared their applause, and the team jumped around with joy.

"You did it, Kurt!" Finn shouted, before he and Puck raised him up onto their shoulders.

Kurt laughed and waved at his dad hopping around in the stands.

"God, I'm glad you guys joined the team," Mike yelled in his ear to be heard over the cacophony.

"Really?" That was probably the most surprising thing to happen that night.

He nodded, slapping his shoulder. "The funnest week of football in my entire life."

* * *

Late that night, after Mr. Hummel drove Blaine home from the game and he was showered and in bed, Kurt called him.

"You-" he began, choking on his words.

"Kurt, are you okay?" he asked, heart pounding frantically.

"You were right!" he finished. "I told my dad. He still loves me." He let out a half-sob, half-laugh, his relief palpable even through the phone line. "My dad still loves me."

* * *

"I'd like to introduce four new glee members, fresh off a win on Friday night."

Blaine's face lit up as he saw Kurt's jaw drop when he walked into the room with the other football players.

"Regionals, here we come."


	4. The Rhodes Not Taken

**Sorry, some chapters are much shorter than others.**

The forty year old woman they now had in their glee club sidled up to Blaine in the hall. "So, you wanna bang the gelfling, right?"

"Excuse me?" he coughed, nearly dropping his books in surprise.

"Kurtie-boy. You want in his skin-tight jeans," April Rhodes continued. "Have no fear, I have gotten into many a pant of a gay boy."

"What on earth- what is your point?"

"I am here to help."

"I do _not_ need it," he assured her vehemently. "Thank you," he added, polite to the bitter end.

"Confidence is great, but he's got eyes for the gargantuan, I'm sure you've noticed. Just because you're the only gay guy he knows doesn't guarantee you a place in his heart."

Blaine suddenly wondered if she wasn't just a figment of his imagination because that's basically the exact same thing he thought every time Kurt gazed at Finn. He'd been sure he'd been making up the longing looks in his head because _why_ would Kurt ever, ever like Finn he's an _idiot_ and past tormentor, but…

"I have to go," he said, rushing away from her.

* * *

"Am I the only one still confused as to how April Rhodes is allowed back into this school?" Blaine mused bitterly as Kurt joined him for lunch in the bleachers.

"Who cares? She's brilliant," he replied excitedly.

"Are you kidding me?" he asked. She was _nuts_, and he knew that before she offered to give him tips on picking Kurt up. "What the hell happened to 'she's no Rachel Berry'?"

"Try some," Kurt said, handing him a thermos.

"What is it?" he replied, eyeing it warily.

"Liquid courage."

"Alcohol? April Rhodes gave you alcohol? You're _sixteen_."

"And…" he began, reaching into his bag to slip out a few muscle magazines. Blaine's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "You can borrow them if you want."

"Kurt, how much of this have you had?" He held up the thermos of illegal booze.

"Enough," he smiled serenely.

"I agree," he said, shoving it into his own school bag.

"Hey-"

"Kurt, you are the last person that needs alcohol to give them strength, okay?" He put a hand on his shoulder and made sure he was looking him in the eye. "You're the bravest person I know."

He looked down at his hands, fidgeting over the pictures of overly muscled men. "It really doesn't feel like it."

Over the past few weeks, Blaine had slowly begun to realize that though Kurt put up a bitchy front, he was just as vulnerable as anybody on the inside, which was just plain shocking, because after joining football and glee, and coming out to his father even though he was scared, Blaine couldn't think of anyone else he looked up to more.

"Kurt, how can you not see yourself the way everybody else sees you?"

"Flaming?" he snorted derisively.

"Yeah, you're gay. So _own_ it, just like you own your incredible fashion sense and your theatrical talent. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and certainly not worthy of using alcohol as a crutch."

"Okay. Thanks," he agreed slowly. "You're kind of a great friend."

He smiled. "Thanks."

"Can I keep the magazines though?"

He threw his head back and laughed. "Yeah, go ahead."

* * *

Blaine poked his head into the guidance counselor's office. "Miss Pillsbury?"

"Yes?" She looked up from arranging some pamphlets on her desk. "Oh, Blaine, hi. Have a seat. How are you adjusting to McKinley?"

"As well as to be expected, I guess," he said, sitting down across from her.

"I heard that you've joined both the football team and glee club. I hope you're enjoying that."

"Yeah," he said. "I dunno about football. I like planning the plays, but I'd rather not have to spend unnecessary amounts of time with the most of the guys on the team."

She hummed sympathetically. "I know you're having a tough time with them; I read all the reports you file with Principal Figgins. You're doing all the right things, and I'm incredibly sorry there's not more I can do for you without either witnesses or serious injury."

He nodded bitterly. He usually ranted to any authority figure he could about the horrible bullying that happened at the school, but he actually liked Miss Pillsbury and didn't want to end up getting mad at her for not doing anything. So he let the opportunity pass.

"Yeah, so." He leaned down and flipped his bag open. "I wasn't really sure who to come to with this. I thought Figgins maybe, but he's been completely useless to me so far, and Schuester is, well… I know you're friends with him so maybe you can talk to him about it instead."

"What is it?"

He pulled out the thermos and set it on her desk. "April Rhodes gave Kurt alcohol," he told her. "And I'm fairly certain that she's teaching Mercedes and Tina how to shoplift."

Miss Pillsbury's eyes somehow grew even wider.

"I don't want to get her in trouble or anything, but…" He held his hands up, quite literally at a loss for words. It was just completely inappropriate behaviour.

She opened the thermos and took a whiff, instantly scrunching her nose and pulling back. "Oh my. This is very serious. Thank you for coming to me with this, Blaine. I'll definitely talk to Wi- Mr. Schuester."

He slid his bag onto his shoulder and stood up. "Thanks, Miss Pillsbury."


	5. Vitamin D & Mash-Up

**As the chapter title may suggest, this has Vitamin D and Mash-Up because they are both very short. (I skipped over Throwdown because nothing really happened to Kurt in that ep).**

**Enjoy!**

Kurt plucked Blaine's sleeve and dragged him over to the girl's side after Schuester told them to split up between genders, but the choir teacher just gave them both a disapproving look and pointed to the opposite side of the room. Kurt sighed as he rejoined the boys.

"I'd just much rather work with the girls," Kurt complained later on in French class.

"I totally understand. None of the girls have ever slushied you. It makes sense."

"And honestly, other than you I haven't had an actual guy friend in years. What the hell do they talk about? Sweat? Football?"

"Boobs," he answered gravely. They both shuddered dramatically.

* * *

"Wow, and nobody is listening to my ideas, even though they're vastly superior to everyone else's," Kurt huffed in the middle of their brainstorming session with the guys. "What a shock."

"Kurt, we don't need a smoke machine for this," Mike tried to explain.

"Or exotic bird feathers," Artie added.

"Or twelve pounds of glitter," Puck scoffed.

"What about _one_ pound of glitter?" Blaine asked, attempting to create a compromise.

"Man, I feel great!" the previously-napping Finn announced, striding back into the room. He was incredibly cheery and upbeat as he explained that the nurse had given him vitamins. He threw a small box to Puck. "Everyone should take one!"

"Is that _drugs_?" Blaine demanded, eyes wide.

"It's a vitamin, and after taking it, my whole outlook is brighter. Come on, everybody take one and then let's get started on this mash-up. I am _psyched_! Are you psyched? I'm psyched."

Puck shrugged and tossed one back, the other football players following suit.

"Uh, is this legal?" Artie asked.

"Yes! Mr. Schue's wife is the new nurse and she gave them to me! They're completely safe. Come on guys, I need you on the top of your game, everybody take a vitamin!" Finn insisted, flipping through sheet music so quickly that Blaine was sure he wasn't taking any of it in.

Kurt and Blaine peered over Artie's shoulders, thoroughly inspecting the box.

"It just looks like an enhanced vitamin," Kurt concluded.

"So I'm not gonna die if I eat it?" Blaine said.

"Do I look dead to you?" Finn asked. "I'm more alive than I've ever been in my life!"

Blaine and Kurt shrugged at each other before they each swallowed a small pill.

* * *

Wow this is gonna be so much fun THIS AIN'T A SONG FOR THE BROKEN-HEARTED I love singing and I love dancing and I get to do it both right now with Kurt NO SILENT PRAYER FOR FAITH DEPARTED wow Kurt's great I love Kurt he looks so awesome in that leather jacket and he has such a great voice AND I AIN'T GONNA BE JUST A FACE IN THE CROWD YOU'RE GONNA HEAR MY VOICE WHEN I SHOUT IT OUT LOUD oh God look at those hips go IT'S MY LIFE

Oh man AND IT'S NOW OR NEVER wow you know what's fun jumping on furniture I AIN'T GONNA LIVE FOREVER yeah look at me grooving on top of this chair I JUST WANNA LIVE WHILE I'M ALIVE oh but I'd have so much more fun on the piano yeah IT'S MY LIFE oh wait there's a spin in the choreography here THESE ARE MY CONFESSIONS

Wait my foot shouldn't be there why are the drums so much closer than before

_Crash_.

* * *

"Blaine. Blaine, can you hear me?"

"Kurt," he groaned, turning towards the voice.

"Oh thank god, two more minutes and we probably would have sent you to the hospital." A different voice. Did he know her?

"He blacked out, he could have a concussion after taking _your_ stupid vitamins. We definitely should have taken him to the hospital," Blaine's favourite voice sniped.

"Wass' going on?" he mumbled, slowly blinking his eyes open. "Where am I?"

Bright blue eyes filled his vision as cool fingers stroked through his hair. "We're in the completely incompetent nurse's office," he told him kindly. "You crashed into the drum set during our number, remember?"

"Oh no, I'm so sorry."

"Shh, it's okay. Are you hurting?"

"My head."

He turned away asked acidly, "Are you capable of handing me a run-of-the-mill Advil, or should I go down to the drug store and buy myself a bottle to make sure that it's not laced with something?"

"Those vitamins are over the counter and FDA approved, it's not my fault he leaped onto a piano and then fell into some instruments!" a screechy blonde lady replied.

"Who the hell is that?"

"The completely incompetent nurse," he replied softly, handing him a familiar red pill and a cup of water. "Take this, I'm gonna get you some ice."

"Thank you."

* * *

"Guys, I'm really disappointed in you. Glee club is supposed to be about what's in your heart, not what courses through your veins," Mr. Schuester said to the glee club later that day. He had his serious teacher face on, which always annoyed Blaine because the rest of the time he was such a joke.

"Isn't it a common expression to say that whatever you're passionate about runs through your veins, though?" Blaine whispered to Kurt.

"Shh." He pressed the ice pack down harder against Blaine's head. "We're getting reamed out."

"I for one am utterly appalled that you would sink so low," Rachel said. "Granted, you never would have beaten us without resorting to nefarious activities, but that is no reason not to have gracefully accepted defeat."

Blaine threw the ice pack at her.

* * *

**Mash-Up**

Kurt and Blaine tried to keep out of whatever feud Coach Sylvester and Schuester were having by splitting the club up into two groups. At the end of the week they all came together to sing to Quinn as a sign of solidarity of her pregnancy and getting kicked out of the Cheerios, even though the only reason she joined New Directions in the first place was to keep Rachel's grimy hands off Finn. Blaine tried not to judge her too harshly. She had Finn's kid growing inside her- that would be enough to make anybody pissed.

The week after that, there was yet more in-faculty fighting. Coach Tanaka told the football team there'd be an extra practice at the same time as one of the glee rehearsals, leaving several of the players, including Blaine and Kurt, with a tough decision to make.

Well, it was _supposed_ to be difficult.

"See ya," Blaine scoffed, hiking his gym bag over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Coach Tanaka, but theatre will always be my passion," Kurt informed him, smoothing back his hair. "Not to mention that the choir room smells a lot less like something died in it than this locker room."

"Consider this our resignation."

There were cheers as they left.

* * *

Blaine wasn't surprised to see Mike walk into the choir room during the time allotted for both glee rehearsal and football practice. He and Blaine had really bonded over the past few weeks, and he knew how much dancing meant to Mike. Matt Rutherford also joined him, as well as Puck, which was more of a surprise.

"Didn't they break up?" Blaine muttered to Kurt as Rachel hugged him in welcome.

"Yeah, I thought he chose popularity over dating her."

Blaine snorted. "He realizes he's in glee club, right? The 'being cool' ship has long since sailed."

"Well, he picked us over football. He must realize the implications," he shrugged. He looked around suddenly. "Wait, where's Finn?"

Finn choosing football over glee was not a shock, however.

* * *

"_No_," Blaine breathed as he watched the approaching figure over Kurt's shoulder.

Kurt turned around to face Finn Hudson holding a slushie.

"Do it," he spat quickly.

"Are you kidding me?" Blaine demanded. "First you abandon us, and now you're back to slushying the losers?"

"Look, I really don't want to," Finn began.

"But you've gotten so much pressure from the gorillas on the football team," Kurt said.

"Who are _supposed_ to be your friends," Blaine muttered.

Finn looked torn.

"There is no way you are gonna slushie my man Kurt," Mercedes cut in from behind Finn.

"Of course he is. He's already made it quite clear that he doesn't care about us _losers_ anymore," Rachel said pointedly.

_Cool, so is everybody over what an amazing guy Finn is now?_ Blaine wondered excitedly.

"Come on, you know that's not true," Finn whined.

"How exactly would we know that?" Blaine asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Actions speak louder than words, and even _Puck_ has been acting better than you this week."

"If I don't they'll beat the crap out of me," he tried to explain.

"Welcome to our lives," Blaine muttered under his breath.

"Well we can't have that, can we?" Kurt asked, taking the slushie out of Finn's hands. For a moment Blaine thought we was going to throw it back at him, but then he saw the hard set of his jaw and determination in his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Finn asked, forehead wrinkling in confusion.

"Taking one for the team," he said firmly.

"Kurt, _no_."

Kurt's gaze flicked to Blaine's distressed face for one moment before tossing the grape slushie into his own face.

The others gasped in shock.

Blaine glared at Finn as Kurt wiped the chunky ice from his eyes.

"You should ask yourself if any of your football buddies would have done that for you," Kurt said, making Finn seem about two inches tall even while he was covered in a frozen beverage.

"And figure out what's more important to you, the blind hero-worship being popular gets you or actual friends," Blaine added angrily.

Finn stumbled away in shock, leaving Kurt demanding a day spa.

* * *

Apparently Finn had some sense knocked into him, because he managed to convince Coach Tanaka to cancel the football practices that interfered with glee club. Kurt and Blaine didn't return, but the other football players did so happily.

They celebrated everything being restored to its rightful order by slushying Schuester.

Blaine would rather have slushied Finn, but Schuester was an acceptable second choice.


	6. Wheels

Blaine's heart broke when he saw the disappointment on Kurt's face when Schue immediately handed the 'Defying Gravity' lead to Rachel.

"Excuse me?" Blaine asked. "What about the variety of other voices this team has? Why does every song go to Rachel by default?"

Kurt looked at him with wide eyes.

"This is a girl's song, bro," Puck groaned. "Calm your tits."

"It's _traditionally_ a girl's song," he corrected. "It's also _traditionally_ a duet."

"You wanna have a hobbit duet?" Santana asked snidely.

"No," he admitted quietly.

"Then shut your godforsaken hole."

Blaine slumped down in his chair and Kurt nodded at him, thanking him silently for trying.

That wasn't the only bad news Schuester had to share with them today. The school also didn't have enough money to rent a wheelchair-accessible bus for Artie. He went on to say something about 'silk cummerbunds', and Blaine didn't really hear the rest of his sentence because he was still so upset that Kurt was being so woefully neglected in the club. Kurt knew the whole soundtrack of _Wicked_ backwards and forwards, and he could sing it just as well as Idina or Kristin.

"It's just not fair," Blaine seethed as they left practice later.

"Hm? I don't know, I know _I'd_ personally prefer to be driven in a car. School buses are travelling germatoriums. Artie should consider himself lucky."

"No, I meant about you not being able to sing 'Defying Gravity'," he corrected.

Kurt's shoulders slumped. "Oh, yeah. That." He plastered a self-confident smile on his face. "Don't worry. I'm not letting it go without a fight. Since I can never sing that song on Broadway, I sure as hell am singing it for Sectionals."

Blaine grinned, nodding. "Good. I've heard you hit that high F, they are all depriving themselves of something magical by not listening to you."

His cheeks darkened. "Really, Blaine. You're making my head far bigger than it has any right to be."

He shrugged. "Everyone's always so busy singing Rachel's praises, nobody ever notices other peoples' talents. And if they do, she throws a fit because she's a _gold star_," he mocked.

He laughed.

Then they got shoved into lockers on opposite sides of the hall.

* * *

At the next glee club practice, Kurt made his desire to sing 'Defying Gravity' known, and Schuester shot him down instantly with a condescending remark about finding him another song with a killer high note.

Blaine opened his mouth to argue, but Kurt just shook his head at him.

And then they learned they had to get around in wheelchairs for the rest of the week.

* * *

Kurt was sulking ("This isn't sulking. I am contemplating a life of mediocrity due to the small-mindedness of a certain high school Spanish teacher!") in his dad's garage when Blaine stopped by with his attempt at baking.

Kurt nodded as he slowly chewed the chocolate chip cookie. "Good. These will definitely sell at the bake sale," he said sullenly.

"Thank god. My dad almost threw a fit when he found me with my mom's apron on," he sighed, leaning back on the table next to where Kurt was sitting.

Kurt frowned. "It sucks that your dad's like that. I always feel so guilty whenever you mention him. It's like I lucked out in the dad lottery."

Blaine shook his head. "It's not your fault. And I just have to deal with it. Come on, express your woes to me about Schuester ignoring your creative genius. And eat all the cookies you want. I made loads."

He pouted, crossing his arms over his chest. "I just am so entirely fed up with always being pushed to the sidelines. That damn club is supposed to be for everybody to express themselves, but Rachel Berry just gets every song handed to her like it's her God-given right."

"What's wrong?" Mr. Hummel asked, walking up to the two boys. "Hey Blaine. Are these cookies for me?"

Blaine gestured at him to go for it as Kurt heaved a put-upon sigh.

"We're doing 'Defying Gravity' for Sectionals and Schuester won't even let me audition."

Mr. Hummel bit into a cookie, forehead furrowing. "That the song you two belt out way too loudly at any point during the day?"

"Yes, it's from _Wicked_, only the best musical this side of the century," he explained.

"So why can't you sing the song?" Mr. Hummel asked.

Kurt set his jaw and bit viciously into another cookie.

"It's traditionally sung by two women," Blaine said. "Plus, Rachel's the golden girl, so Schuester didn't even listen when Kurt said he wanted to audition."

"You can sing like a girl," he said to Kurt. "In a good way. I mean, I don't know much about musicals or show choir, but shouldn't they be the places that differences are embraced? I thought you were supposed to be able to be yourself in glee club."

"Yes, that is the tag line. However, Schuester's lesson of the week is about making Artie feel included, which is all well and good, but that just means he's ignoring every other problem cropping up."

"I think this Schuester deserves a piece of my mind," he said, a determined look stealing across his face.

"What do you mean, dad?"

"I mean, you don't deserve to be this miserable just because your teacher won't listen to you. I'm calling a meeting with your principal."

* * *

"Your dad is so cool," Blaine enthused as they rolled out of glee club the next day. Schuester had announced that glee club would vote for who got the solo, Kurt or Rachel. She had of course complained, but Kurt made a big deal about ensuring that the club vote for whoever was better, and Blaine pledged louder than them all. "And you're totally gonna kick ass, and you're gonna get the solo and everyone will see how amazing you are."

Kurt held his head high as he rolled down the hall next to Blaine. "Thank you, but I mustn't get too confident. Now that I have the chance, there's no way I'm letting it slip through my fingers. I have to keep practicing and keep my voice in tip-top condition. Come over later to help me practice?"

Blaine was just about to agree when two jocks grabbed their wheelchair handles and dumped the both of them onto the ground.

"Homos," they jeered, laughing as they walked away.

"Ow," Blaine mumbled, voice muffled from the floor flattening his cheek.

* * *

"Since when do Cheerios have try outs?"

Kurt grinned madly. "Since Figgins told Sue to be more inclusive. I know I should be focusing on my audition, but this won't take more than five minutes of my time and I just have to _try_."

Blaine watched from the stands as Kurt accidentally threw his baton behind him. He applauded anyway.

"Okay, that could have used more work," Kurt admitted as they walked away after getting a resounding '_No'_ from Sue. "But onwards and upwards, I have songs to sing and solos to win."

* * *

Blaine watched Kurt with such awe as he sang his heart out in front of glee club. He was so proud of him; Kurt was _killing_ it, there was no way Rachel was winning this thing.

He got closer to the part in the song that required the high F, and he started to look nervous. Blaine leaned forward, smiling encouragingly when Kurt's eyes fell on him because he'd heard Kurt sing it over and over again the day before. He could do it. Blaine knew he could-

Sound like a screeching cat.

Blaine had never been more shocked.

"What happened?" Blaine asked when Kurt returned to gather his things from his seat next to him as everyone filed out of the room. "Was it nerves? I'm sure Schuester will let you try again. It's only fair."

Kurt just shook his head, jaw tight.

"Kurt, I know you can hit that note-"

"I couldn't," he whispered, chin dropping to his chest. "Blaine, my dad got an anonymous call harassing him about me. He just, he was so distraught. I can't let that keep happening to him. And if I sang a girl's song in front of thousands of people? Those calls would never stop."

Blaine's heart fell to the floor. "Kurt," he said, putting his hand on his shoulder.

Kurt looked up at him from under his lashes. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd try to convince me not to. But it's something I couldn't let you pep talk me out of. I'm proud of who I am, I swear. But I love my dad more that some stupid solo."

"It wasn't stupid," Blaine countered quietly.

Kurt closed his eyes. "I know. But there'll be other songs. I'll get over it."

Blaine hugged him tightly.


	7. Ballad

**Hey, so in case you hadn't noticed, Blaine really doesn't like Finn. So, uh yeah. If you really like Finn, sorry about that, but this is how Blaine feels about the proceedings. Just a little advisory :)**

**Enjoy!**

Partners chosen by fate?

Fuck that noise.

Finn picked Kurt's name out of the hat (and then totally tried to sneak out of it) and Blaine got stuck with _Rachel_.

She immediately made him sing with her to show off what type of ballads the pairs should be choosing, and after they finished singing 'Endless Love', she wouldn't stop staring at him.

"Was I that bad?" Blaine asked Kurt as he sat back down.

"No you were great," he said after a beat, gazing at Finn in contentment.

Blaine got a sinking feeling in his gut as Kurt let out dreamy sigh after dreamy sigh for the rest of the lesson. This ballad business was going to be nothing but trouble.

* * *

"Hey, where have you been?" Blaine asked as Kurt strolled up to their spot in the bleachers with five minutes left of lunch.

"I was working on the glee assignment with Finn," he replied, smiling widely.

"Great," he said tightly. "You didn't think to text me about your change of plans?"

"Sorry, I completely forgot," he said, unwrapping his sandwich and downing half of it in one go.

Blaine looked down at his knees. "Sure. Okay."

"Finn is going through such a difficult time in his life," he said with absolutely no prompting. "I'm so glad I have the opportunity to help him this week."

"You're supposed to be singing songs to each other," he pointed out.

"Music is a form of healing," he replied sagely. The bell for the end of lunch rang and Kurt packed away his sandwich quickly. "See you later!"

_Just get through the week_, he told himself. Once they'd performed their ballads on Friday, Finn would go back to ignoring Kurt whenever possible and Kurt would return to a more subtle form of hero-worshipping or crushing or _whatever the hell_ was going on with him at the moment.

He finally started heading back inside and had just reached the school doors when he heard his name being called behind him.

"Blaine, I'm so glad I found you," Rachel said, grinning manically at him.

"Okay? Is this about the ballads?"

"Sort of. But here, I got this for you." She pulled a present out from behind her back.

"Oh uh, thanks," he said politely, taking the small box despite his wariness.

"Open it," she prodded.

"I- I have class-"

"Please? I need to know if you like it."

He sighed, quickly tearing the wrapping off. "A bowtie," he said, for lack of anything better to say. "With gold stars on it…"

Her grin was blinding. "Yes, because gold stars are a metaphor for me being a star. It's kind of my thing. And now you can wear it, and be inspired to be as much of a success as I am!"

"… Okay. Thanks, Rachel. I have to get to class."

He was distracted from his troubles by sheer confusion for a minute, until he caught sight of Finn in the hallway, and his face darkened.

_Just finish this ridiculous week._

* * *

The next day, a few of them were talking about Blaine's favourite topic, Finn's problems, in the hallway while they watched Quinn ream him out for telling his mom about the pregnancy.

"I just feel so bad for them, having to go through this on their own," Mercedes said, looking over her shoulder in concern.

"He just told his mom. They're not alone anymore," Blaine pointed out, scrolling through his phone in a passive-aggressive manner. "They were going to have to tell somebody soon anyway. It's not like Quinn's parents weren't going to notice her sprouting to the size of a planet in a few months."

"Oh, that poor harassed soul," Kurt said, fawning over Finn as Quinn stomped away in a rage. "I'm gonna go see if he's okay."

"He's fine, I'm sure," Blaine said sourly, but Kurt was already walking over to him. He viciously shoved his phone into his pocket.

"Boy, what's eating you?" Mercedes asked. "You've looked like a raincloud's been following you the entire day."

"It's nothing," he grumbled. "I'm gonna head to class."

He had to walk by Kurt and Finn to do so, and in passing he heard Kurt say, "Almost makes you wanna give up girls altogether, doesn't it?" Then he did his awkward little chuckle and Blaine stopped dead in the hallway as Finn muttered a response before leaving.

"Okay, what are you doing?" Blaine demanded of Kurt.

"Hm?" he said, eyes wide. "What are you talking about?"

Blaine took a short breath to hold back his frustration and reminded himself that Kurt was his friend and furthermore, he was probably just overreacting about this entire situation.

"What's going on with you and Finn?" he asked, a lot calmer than before. He was probably just imagining things.

Kurt bit his lip and looked around shiftily. "You promise not to tell?" he asked.

_Bad, bad territory, shark-infested waters, no, abort, what is he going to say?_

"Of course," he said, not letting the thoughts racing around his head betray him.

He checked to make sure that no one was paying attention to them and then admitted in a rush, "I'm in love with Finn."

He opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was this weird squawking sound.

He listened to Kurt explain how Finn had been his 'knight in shining armour' since he'd met him, how they'd bonded over glee and skin care products, and that Quinn would only end up devastating him, leaving Kurt to console him, all with this weird sort of noise rushing through his ears.

And the noise sounded an awful lot like-

"But he's _straight_," he blurted.

And a bully, and an idiot, and an asshole, the list went on and on, but whenever Blaine mentioned those tidbits of Finn's personality, Kurt got extremely defensive. So Blaine decided to try a new tactic, which should have been instantly effective.

Kurt's face closed off, as it always did when someone abruptly ruined his good mood.

"If he's never considered the alternative, he can't really know-"

"_No_," Blaine cut him off. "Finn is straight. He is straight with a girlfriend. He is straight with a girlfriend who is _pregnant_ with his child."

"They're giving it up," he shrugged. "The baby doesn't play a factor."

"And the _straightness_ of your crush doesn't either?" he asked incredulously.

"I know you don't like him, but it's not like I can help who I have a crush on," Kurt replied with acid on his tongue.

"You can try not to _turn_ him gay, because that's not a thing that happens!" he retorted, straining to keep his voice down.

"Excuse me, don't insult my intelligence like that," he spat. He flicked some stray hairs off his forehead and said, "I'm working under the assumption that he has latent homosexual tendencies. I mean, he plays football- if a bunch of guys in tights jumping on each other isn't gay I don't know what is."

"You. Are. Serious," he said, blinking slowly. "Oh my God. Kurt, this is going to have _nothing_ but negative consequences for you, you realize that, right? The only even mildly fortunate scenario I can think of is that he won't notice you flirting with him while you work on your ballad assignment and then he'll go back to ignoring you next week."

Kurt gaped at him before his mouth twisted into a sneer. "What the hell happened to you having my back, Blaine? Where's all the encouragement from last week?"

"I'm not going to cheerlead you to certain doom!" he cried. He grabbed his arm and dragged him into the empty classroom next to them for some semblance of privacy. "Singing a song people don't want you to sing is different from crushing on Finn Hudson!"

He rolled his eyes dramatically. "This isn't even about him being straight, is it? This is just your stupid prejudice against him. What'd he ever do to you?"

Blaine barked a laugh. "You want the full list? He's thrown me into dumpsters, trapped me in lockers, slushied me, slushied _you_, stood by while his best friend picked on you again and again, let you slushie yourself, abandoned the glee club several times since joining, gave me a 'vitamin' that led to me getting a bruise the size of a rock on my head-"

"That wasn't entirely his fault-"

"And the rest of it? Can you excuse it all?"

"Half the reasons were about _me_," he ground out after a moment. "I asked what he did to _you_."

"Everything he did to hurt you hurt me too," Blaine said, throat hoarse from emotion. "We're friends, remember? And I have that mystical power of empathy? I don't want to see you hurt again by that buffoon."

Kurt straightened his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well I suppose that's admirable. But I am quite capable of making my own decisions. And I will. Without your input."

He strode past him to the door, throwing it open before stomping out of the room.

"Shit," he muttered after realizing he'd just had _another_ fight with Kurt, about _Finn_. He slapped the nearest desk in frustration. "Shit!"

* * *

After school, he headed to the exercise room, releasing his frustrations on a punching bag, which he probably should have done in the first place instead of yelling at Kurt.

But he'd needed to hear it.

Or had he been out of line?

But Finn was straight, and not exactly open-minded. If he found out about the crush, there could be severe repercussions.

Or was he overreacting?

No, Finn's an asshole. Him and his friends tormented all the members of glee club before he was in the club with them.

But Kurt lived through that, and he still had the ridiculous crush. Doesn't he deserve whatever he gets?

_No_.

Blaine's mind had been racing around in circles, and he returned home physically and mentally exhausted.

"Dad?" he called out tiredly. "Are you here? Can I order pizza?"

"No need for that, son," his father replied from the kitchen. "Dinner's almost ready."

Blaine lifted his head up, sniffing the air like a dog as he followed the scent. "Smells good. Since when do you make anything except microwave-?"

He froze in his tracks.

Rachel Berry was bent over his oven, wearing a fluffy pink apron, smiling widely as she set a steaming casserole on the stovetop.

He closed his eyes. Opened them. No, she was still there.

"How do you know where I live?" he croaked.

"There aren't that many Andersons in the phonebook," she replied with a wave of her oven-mitted hand.

"Imagine my surprise when I get a call from this girl, asking if she can come cook you dinner," his father said, sounding more pleased than he had been in months.

It took a few more seconds for his distracted mind to connect the dots, but when he did he was shocked to find that he actually _could_ feel worse than he'd already felt.

His dad thought Rachel was his girlfriend, or potential suitor or… whatever. He thought Blaine had finally gotten over his 'phase' as he'd taken to calling it whenever Blaine would remind him that he was gay.

Blaine kind of wanted to throw up.

"I'm not hungry," he said, though he knew it wouldn't get him out of it.

"Of course you are," his dad argued. "A pretty girl makes you a meal, you sit down and eat it. Come on, the table's set."

Blaine was too exhausted to argue. So he sat through a dinner filled with Rachel bragging about how great she was, and afterwards he walked her home. Under the ruse of practicing her ballad, they shared head phones as she sang 'Crush' to him, which cleared up why she'd been acting so weird around him lately.

He dropped off her at her house and ignored her ridiculously hopeful eyes before returning home to the welcoming embrace of his bed.

* * *

Blaine had thought a lot over the night, and he decided that apologizing immediately to Kurt would be easier than anything else. He'd just opened his locker when he caught sight of him.

"Hey Kurt-"

He didn't even turn his head. Just kept on walking, head held high like a king ignoring the peasants.

He couldn't understand how other people could stand it; Kurt's superior attitude, making you feel two inches tall without so much as a blink in your direction.

It sucked.

* * *

Blaine ate his lunch in the bleachers solo again, moodily munching on his sandwich. He was right back to where he started his first day at McKinley; alone, lonely, and with hair sticky from a slushie.

"Blaine!"

He snapped his head up hopefully, but it was only Rachel leaping up the steps to greet him.

"Oh hi," he mumbled around the straw in his juice box.

"I've been looking for you everywhere," she sighed, smoothing her skirt down as she sat next to him.

"Yeah, sorry. I've been a bit distracted from the ballad assignment," he sighed, staring off into the distance. "You wanna talk about that now?"

"Well yes, that would be ideal, but I also have business of a more… personal nature to broach with you," she admitted.

He set his sandwich down on his lap to stare at her. "You're not pregnant, are you?"

"Of course not," she said indignantly. "It's nothing like that. I was just wondering if you would be interested in perhaps going on a date with me this Friday."

He blinked once, twice.

_Oh yeah, she has a crush on me_, he eventually remembered.

"No, sorry," he said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

"Oh," she said, taken aback at the bluntness of his answer. "May I ask why not? I feel like I am quite the catch."

"Well, other than the fact that both of us are hung up on different people," he began, watching her blush. "I'm not on your team."

Her face crinkled in confusion. "What? Yeah, we are, glee club…"

"I'm gay," he said, as if it should be obvious.

Her eyebrows popped up high on her forehead. "You are?"

He nodded. "Since birth."

"Yeah of course, oh wow, you should meet my dads! Am I the first person you've ever told? I completely accept you, Blaine, and-"

"Okay, thank you," he said quickly, cutting her off. "You're not the first person I've told, I just haven't bothered to come out at McKinley yet."

"Why didn't you mention that last night when I sang that love song to you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It's just one of those things that honestly didn't occur to me. Also, I have a lot on my mind right now. My life doesn't revolve around Rachel Berry."

She bowed her head. "I know that."

"Just as long as you're aware that there are other plots happening here than yours."

"So tell me about it," she suggested cheerfully. "I haven't had the chance to talk to you very much since you joined glee. What's happening in your life?" She patted his knee.

"I appreciate the offer, but I really don't want to talk about it."

"I assume that you've been fighting with Kurt?" she pressed on anyway.

He sighed. "And why do you assume that?"

"Because both of you look completely miserable."

"Kurt doesn't look miserable. He looks completely content with himself and his choices," he muttered.

"Blaine, he looks just like he used to, before he met you." Blaine looked confused and she continued, "You know the first time I saw him smile was when he was talking to you?"

"You probably just weren't paying attention to him before. You're pretty self-involved, no offense."

She shrugged, not denying it. "Regardless, he definitely lets you see a piece of himself that he hides from everybody else."

He snorted. "That sounds pretty gay."

Her eyes widened. "That's _not_ what I meant- Unless, are you two…?"

"No! I mean, no," he corrected, more subdued.

She eyed him and he shifted uncomfortably under her critical gaze. "You said we were both pining for somebody else. For me it's Finn… You like Kurt, don't you?"

"If I say no is there any possibility of you believing me?" he asked, heaving a sigh.

She squealed, bouncing in place. "Oh this is so exciting, I can totally help set you guys up-"

"No, no, no," he rushed to settle her down. "I will have no part of the glee club's crazy desire to mess with each other's personal lives. You are staying out of it and you are not telling anybody- _especially_ not Kurt. Understand?"

Rachel frowned and nodded. "If only because I already have a lot on my plate and don't really have the time to play match maker," she answered, smoothing down her cardigan.

"Thank you," he sighed, tilting his head back in relief.

"Anytime. Now, have you thought about using your ballad to woo Kurt at all?"

* * *

Blaine sat in his living room, trying to call Kurt on his cell since he wouldn't talk to him in school, but he was apparently ignoring his calls because on the fourth try his answering machine message changed from, "You have reached Kurt Hummel. I'm busy right now, leave a message if necessary." to "The phone of Kurt Hummel actually has a three call limit. If I don't answer after you call that many times, there's probably a reason."

He threw his phone onto the couch with a sigh. Maybe Kurt just needed some time. He liked having the upper hand, and forgiving Blaine just as easily as last time was not the way to get that.

But their friendship shouldn't be some power play. He just wanted to be friends again, was that so hard?

"Are you calling that Rachel girl?" his dad asked, picking his reading glasses up off the coffee table. "She was nice. Good cook, too."

Blaine stared glumly at his hands in his lap.

His father sat down next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "In all honesty Blaine, I _am_ glad you're over that silly phase of yours. If you're having girl troubles already, don't be discouraged. Relationships take effort, and compromise. But everything will work out the way it should, don't worry."

His father often acted like the reincarnation of Ward Cleaver, even after his June left him last year. He'd always wanted the perfect family, and instead he got an ex-wife, one idiot son in California, and another gay, singing son moping on the couch.

Blaine understood that he was _trying_ to be a good dad with the pep talk, but he was failing miserably. All he wanted was to be able to talk to him about Kurt, but he couldn't handle the look of barely concealed contempt that would without a doubt cross his face when he explained that the gay guy he liked had a crush on a straight football player, and that was putting a strain on their friendship.

"Blaine?" his father prodded after he was unresponsive to their father-son chat.

His phone buzzed on the other side of the couch and he jumped to retrieve it but his father picked it up first. "You uh, have a text from a car?"

"Huh?" He read the screen and his shoulders slumped. "Oh, Mercedes. She's just from glee."

"Quite the ladies' man, aren't you?" he chuckled.

"I'm gay, dad," he reminded him tiredly. "I am a homosexual. I am in no way, shape, or form a ladies man."

The words hit his father like thorns pricking his face. He shifted on the couch, growing increasingly more uncomfortable. "I thought you were over this. What about that Rachel girl?"

"An overbearing friend," he told him. "It would really mean a lot to me if you at least tried to accept this about me, dad. Because my sexuality isn't going away, and it really hurts every time you pretend it will."

His father's shoulders went rigid. "Really Blaine, you need to get a tougher skin. If every-"

"I _have_ a tough skin, dad!" he interrupted, voice cracking. "Trust me, it stands up well in school every day. But I'd like for home to be a safe space where I don't have to pretend to be somebody I'm not! I haven't officially come out at McKinley, just like you told me to, and I get picked on anyway, so my life still sucks."

"With all due respect Blaine, it's probably because you joined that stupid club," he said dismissively.

"No dad, that's not why," he sighed, getting up off the couch. His father's eyebrows drew together in consternation when Blaine said before leaving, "Can you just stop pretending to be a good dad, please? It just makes it worse when you end up being shit at it."

* * *

He'd tried calling Kurt again later that night and he still hadn't answered, which just made him more annoyed. He felt awful and all he wanted was for someone to tell him it was gonna be okay, and Kurt was ignoring him because of _Finn_. Blaine was always there when Kurt needed him, but what about when Blaine needed someone to lean on? Where was he now?

"Blaine, there you are," Mercedes said when she found him in the hallway. "I tried texting you last night but you didn't answer."

"I was busy," he mumbled.

"Okay well, we're singing 'Lean on Me' to Finn and Quinn," she told him. "They need all the support they can get now that Quinn's been kicked out. Did you want a few solo lines? We've already planned most of it out, but there's always room-"

"No," Blaine cut in, not believing what he was hearing.

"Really? But you're so good-"

"No, I mean I am _not_ singing to Finn. There is no way."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Um, it's not just gonna be you. The whole club's singing to them."

"Then I quit," he decided abruptly.

"What?" she screeched. "I mean, you don't _have_ to sing-"

"I don't care," he shrugged. "I'm done. So done."


	8. Hairography

"Tu as quitté la chorale? Pourquoi?"

Blaine wasn't completely sure what Kurt had said, but he was irritated about whatever he was talking about, so he could guess.

"Do I need to have a reason? Finn seems to quit glee every other week just for kicks," he grumbled, not looking at him.

Attacking Finn the first time Kurt had talked to him in days probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but Blaine was annoyed with _Kurt_ by now. He'd had the entire weekend to himself and all he did was brood.

"I thought you said you weren't a quitter," Kurt accused, eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, and I thought we were friends, but you've avoided every attempt I made to talk to you, so."

"Wait, are you mad at _me_ now?" he asked incredulously.

He shrugged, sinking down in his seat. "Kinda, yeah."

"Unbelievable. What the hell did _I_ do?"

"I wanted to talk to you about stuff, Kurt. And you were either ignoring me or too busy trying to convert Finn to listen," he replied, trying to hide his hurt.

"I can't have other friends?" He lifted a dangerous brow.

"That's not what I'm saying. Why does nobody ever listen to me?"

"Oh don't be so dramatic," he rolled his eyes dismissively. "You sound like Rachel."

"Speaking of which, she had a crush on me last week, which you'd have known if you were speaking to me." Kurt's face registered the proper amount of horror at the admission and Blaine continued heatedly. "Yeah, she showed up at my house and my dad thought I was straight, so I had to deal with that bull crap while you hung out with Finn. How'd that go by the way? He break up with Quinn yet? You planning your wedding?"

Kurt set his jaw, glaring at the front of the room without answering.

Blaine silently seethed next to him.

* * *

"I hope you didn't leave glee because of my inappropriate crush on you," Rachel said to Blaine in biology.

He almost dropped his beaker of dangerous chemicals when he lifted his eyes to look at her. "What the hell are you wearing?"

She smiled. "Kurt gave me a makeover. You like?" She twirled around, showing off the short, tight dress that matched her heavy makeup.

"Why did he give you a makeover?" Blaine asked, dumbfounded. "No offense, but he doesn't really like you that much."

"Yes, he mentioned that. He thought a new look would make people like me more," she replied, not realizing the problematic elements of that answer. "People like Finn."

He stared at her in disbelief. "He said this look would help you score Finn?"

She nodded happily.

Blaine knew Kurt quite well, so he could spot one of his schemes from a mile away. This was clearly sabotage, and would end very poorly for Rachel. And Kurt, when she realized what he was doing.

"But I came over here to talk to you about glee, not my fabulous new look," she said before he could try to explain anything to her without giving away Kurt's crush on Finn and his ulterior motives. "You didn't leave because of me, did you?"

"Again, I'd like to remind you that the world does not revolve around you," he said, rising a brow above his safety glasses. He poured some chemicals into a vial carefully and continued. "I didn't want to sing to Finn about his problems when he's _creating_ mine, I mostly joined because of Kurt and now he's not talking to me, and I like performing, but dancing behind you and Finn every week is getting kind of old."

"That jealousy is completely natural, however I'd like to point out that until last week none of us had really heard you sing," she replied to the last part of his admission. "You didn't even properly audition, you just came in with the rest of the football guys when we needed members. But I can assure you, if you want solos, you can _get_ solos; your voice is incredible. Why do you think I started crushing on you?"

Blaine hadn't really wanted to think about why a straight girl had suddenly started liking him, but he supposed that made a lot of sense.

"Well I appreciate that, but the stuff with Finn and Kurt has really been getting me down, so I'm not coming back right now," he answered. "Besides, you have enough members for Sectionals. You don't even need me."

* * *

Blaine was putting his books away in his locker when a shadow fell across him. He looked up to find Finn nervously wringing his hands.

"Uh hey. Blaine."

"Well I should have expected you. Here to try and make me rejoin glee?" he asked tightly.

His forehead scrunched up as his mind tried to make sense of his response. "Uh, no. Did you want me to?"

"No." He slammed his locker shut and started walking away.

But Finn followed, not taking a hint. "Okay so, you were paired with Rachel last week for that ballad assignment, right? Was she acting weirdly?"

"Okay Finn, I'm going to say this as plainly as possible. I don't want to talk to you, and I don't owe it to you to talk to you, because I am in neither in glee nor football anymore. So if you would kindly leave me alone." He made a shooing gesture with his hands, hoping he'd listen to him.

"Why? What'd I ever do to you?" he asked incredulously.

"Why do people keep asking me that? Why do you _think_?" he snapped back. Finn just stared at him blankly. He groaned in frustration. "You know, you were clever enough to get the head of the Celibacy Club to sleep with you, I'm sure you can figure out this little puzzle."

His mouth opened and closed, brow furrowed in concentration until he finally just said, "Well, I mean- we never actually had sex."

"Of course you did," he argued. Maybe he had memory loss problems. That would explain a lot… "Quinn is pregnant. How do you think that happened?"

"I… got a little overexcited in a hot tub after making out with her," he muttered awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

Blaine stared at him. "Like, wait- you just, without- You understand what sex is, right?"

"Yeah!"

"And you never had sex with Quinn?"

"No."

"You… Just came in a hot tub _next_ to her?"

He nodded, face red.

Blaine blinked at him, wondering if he was playing some elaborate joke. But Finn looked completely serious, and Blaine didn't really find it that funny.

"There is no way that you are the father of that child," Blaine stated plainly. "You have to have sex to get pregnant. Who the hell taught you sex ed?"

His face wrinkled up like a deflated balloon. "But… but if I'm not the father, that means…"

Blaine figured out the implications a second before he did, belatedly realizing that maybe he shouldn't have told him the obvious.

"She cheated," Finn said quietly. "She cheated!"

"Without using protection," Blaine added, shaking his head. "Bad move."

"Shut up," he growled, pushing him hard into the wall.

"Hey! Piss off!" he snapped. He'd had just about enough of Finn Hudson shoving him around, getting away with it, and then being lauded as a hero.

Finn looked ready to pound the lights out of the next thing his eyes landed on, which of course was Blaine. He grabbed him by his collar and shoved him up against the wall. "Was it you?" he shouted in his face

"What?" He tried to get away but Finn was fueled by an intense misplaced rage and moving just made Finn shake him harder. "What the hell are you talking about now?"

"Did you sleep with Quinn?" he demanded.

"Hey!" A cry from down the hall briefly stole Finn's attention and Blaine was able to wriggle out of his grasp. An indignant Kurt stomped up to him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he yelled.

Kurt was yelling at _Finn_. For picking on _Blaine_.

"Who do you think you are?" Kurt said, stabbing Finn in the chest with one hand with his suit case swinging wildly in the other. "I thought you'd stopped harassing us glee kids!"

"I'll harass whoever I want if I think they had sex with my girlfriend!"

And Finn looked so much bigger than Kurt while he was towering over him and screaming, but Kurt, brave, wonderful Kurt just scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Are you stupid? You think _Blaine_ inseminated Quinn? He didn't even know her when she- ugh." He shook his head. "It was Puckerman! Go beat him up."

"P- Puck?" he repeated, the disbelief stilling his body like he'd been hit by a freight train. "No way."

"Go ask him. Maybe he'll stop lying to you," Kurt said.

Finn looked between them one more time before charging away in search of his best friend.

Kurt turned around to face Blaine, looking chagrined. "I'm sorry," he said.

"What?"

He played with the handle of his suitcase. "I'm sorry," he repeated, ducking his head low. "I've been an asshole."

"Well…" Blaine trailed off. "You were maybe a little more inconsiderate than usual."

"I admit it, okay?" he said, throwing his arms open. "I shouldn't have bounded off with Finn like that. Your concerns were legitimate, obviously," he added, waving a hand at where Finn had forced Blaine against the wall. "And yes, I tend to disregard Finn's more negative qualities-"

"And straightness," Blaine couldn't help but add.

Kurt gave him a sour look. "Yes, okay. I realize I don't really have a chance with him. I just had this conversation with Rachel."

"Who you _totally_ sabotaged," he said.

He shrugged a little, not denying it.

He shook his head, not trying to hide his grin. "You are conniving."

"I consider it a character strength," he said lightly. "So… Are we okay now? I really am sorry. Sometimes I just forget to think about other people when I want something."

"It's alright," he said, pushing off the wall. "And I'm sorry for yelling at you about it."

Kurt waved off his apology, holding out his arms tentatively for a hug. Blaine welcomed the embrace, wrapping his arms tightly around his waist. "But can we please never fight about Finn Hudson again?" he asked, voice muffled in Kurt's shoulder. "Because that's like the stupidest topic for an argument that I've ever heard."

Kurt laughed and nodded. "Yes, I promise," he said, pulling back. "And I want to hear all about your days without me, now. We'll go for tea. After we swing by the choir room to see if Finn's killed Puck?"

"Of course. We must see the thrilling conclusion to Babygate," he said, offering his arm. "Shall we?"

"We shall," he replied, looping his arms through Blaine's with a smile.


	9. Sectionals

**Hey, this is Sectionals, and I skipped over Mattress because well, Blaine had quit glee club during that and I didn't feel like enough happened to Kurt to make an actual chapter out of it.**

**Enjoy!**

The fallout out of Finn finding out about Puck and Quinn's deceit was pretty bad, but not as terrible as it could have been, because Blaine rejoined glee so they still had enough members to compete at Sectionals in a week.

"Okay so Finn is gone, thanks to _certain members'_ stupid decisions," Rachel began, glaring at Quinn and Puck in a glee meeting. "So we need to pick a new male lead as a back-up plan in case he doesn't rejoin by Sectionals."

The footballers shrunk in their seats, none of them wanting the limelight.

Blaine and Kurt had a silent conversation of Blaine smiling encouragingly at Kurt, Kurt pointing a confused finger towards himself and when Blaine nodded, Kurt shook his head firmly. He pointed back towards Blaine.

"I vote for Blaine," Kurt announced after the club had sat in contemplative silence for a few moments.

"And I vote for Kurt," Blaine contended, ignoring his cease and desist look.

"Or Artie," Tina put in.

"All great voices," Rachel agreed after a moment. "Noah, do you not want to be in the running?"

"I'm not singing solo in front of a bunch of strangers. No freakin' way," he shook his head. Mike and Matt made similar grunts of agreement.

"Okay, so we have to decide between Princess, Wheels and the Hobbit," Santana sighed. "Looks promising."

"Are rude monikers just a cover-up for not actually knowing our names?" Blaine asked.

"While I fully appreciate Blaine's vote of confidence," Kurt began, nodding towards him, "I am well aware that none of you consider me leading man material against Rachel. And as I'm sure some of the songs we choose will be duets, I gracefully remove my name from the running. If you want to just give me a full solo like the one Rachel will undoubtedly be getting however, I'd be okay with that."

"Aw hell no," Mercedes cut in. "If Rachel's gonna a duet with whichever guy we choose, I wanna sing the ballad the judges are asking for."

"With all due respect Mercedes, I really think that I'm a much better balladeer than you."

Blaine could tell that Mercedes was about to blow, so he stood up. "Let's just decide which songs we're going to sing first, okay?"

Since Schuester had been fired as being a leader of glee club for… something about mattresses, (Blaine wasn't quite sure what had gone down while he was away) they hadn't been using the whiteboard. He picked up a marker to write the songs down, because visuals are nice.

"Okay, you've been planning on doing Journey from the start, right?" he asked, writing down 'Don't Stop Believing' after receiving several nods.

"We need to do 'Proud Mary' with the wheelchairs," Artie put in. "It's really inventive and it showcases a lot of our voices."

"Okay, sounds good," Blaine agreed, scribbling it down. "Now for the ballad…"

"Now, Mercedes," Rachel began in a placating tone.

"Sit your white ass down. I have been working just as hard as you, and if it pleases the queen," she said sarcastically, "I'd like to sing for ya'll."

She performed a breath-taking song, and even Rachel realized it so that was one problem down. They already had leads for 'Proud Mary'.

"So all that's left now is the male lead in 'Don't Stop'," Blaine concluded happily. "Artie, you wanna duke it out through song?"

He shook his head. "No man, I'm happy with what I've got in 'Proud Mary'. You take the lead. You're doing a great job right now."

"Really?" he asked, eyebrows going high. The others nodded and Kurt grinned at him proudly. "Thanks, guys."

They didn't really need Finn at all, did they?

* * *

"Okay. Okay. Okay," Blaine muttered to himself, trying to convince himself that everything _was_ okay as Artie rammed himself into the wall, Rachel ranted about reprehensible activities and Miss Pillsbury engaged in a frantic phone call with Schuester because _the other schools had stolen their set list_.

Kurt sat down next to him. "We have an hour before we have to perform and repeating the same word over and over again isn't going to help," he advised.

"Yeah, I know," he sighed, leaning his head on Kurt's shoulder. "So what will?"

"We need new songs," Kurt announced, somewhat unnecessarily, but it brought everyone's attention to him and away from their worrying.

"You still think we can perform?" Tina asked incredulously.

"Dude, I didn't even think we were gonna win with the performances we've already done a hundred times," Puck said. "How much are we gonna suck with something we came up with in an hour?"

"Don't be so pessimistic, Noah," Rachel chastised. "We didn't fight to get here just to be pushed down at one last obstacle."

They worked out the first two songs, with Rachel ending up with the ballad after all and 'Somebody to Love' to finish them off, but then got stuck on the second song.

"We can return to our roots with 'Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat'," Artie suggested dryly.

"Can I say again that 'Defying Gravity' is a duet and Kurt and Rachel could easily pull that off together?" Blaine said.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Blaine, Kurt couldn't hit the high note, remember?" Mercedes said gently.

"Kurt," Blaine sighed, giving him a look.

He bit his lip nervously before rolling his eyes. "Okay, so I threw that competition. My dad was getting harassed on the phone and I didn't want him to have to deal with me singing a girl's song in public, which brings me to my answer of no. Thank you, but I can't, Blaine."

He nodded understandingly, trying to think of another suitable song.

"Maybe something by Katy Perry," he mused.

There was a chorus of 'No's and he frowned.

"One day," Kurt reassured him with a pat on the back.

At that moment, Finn rushed in with the answer to their prayers. As annoying as he was, he did come through in their time of need, which Blaine greatly appreciated.

"So which song is Blaine going to sing in?" Brittany asked just before they were about to split up to work on the different areas of the performances.

"What?" Finn said.

Mike told him how they'd planned to use Blaine as lead and then added, "And I agree with Brittany, he should still be able to have a lead part. He really came through in the choir room when we were picking songs."

To Blaine's surprise, the rest of the club agreed, and he ended up with a sizeable chunk of singing in 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', which was the song Finn brought.

* * *

When they won Kurt hugged him so tight he could barely breathe.


	10. Power of Madonna

**I skipped over Hell-O, so here's Power of Madonna.**

**Enjoy!**

Blaine sort of suspected they wouldn't be any more popular after their Sectionals win, but as usual, he wished he wasn't right when they got hit with slushies just as Rachel was crowing about how popular glee club was going to be.

The next week when Schuester wrote 'Madonna' on the board, Blaine could practically _feel_ Kurt vibrating with excitement beside him.

"What do you think of when you see this name?"

"Genius," Rachel enthused.

"Icon," said Kurt.

"Legendary," Blaine added.

And then Puck said she was a MILF.

When Schuester told them the assignment for the week was for everyone to perform a Madonna song, Kurt squeezed Blaine's hand with joy and then announced that to properly tribute Madonna, he wanted to do a multimedia presentation with him. He wasn't quite sure what that entailed, but any time spent with Kurt was bound to be fun. He couldn't wait.

* * *

After watching Sue freak out about Schue disrespecting her hair, Kurt and Blaine stopped by her office to offer condolences and make a deal. The story she told them about her childhood was so outlandish that Blaine wasn't sure if he was actually supposed to believe it or not, but in the end she agreed to work with them, which was more than Blaine had expected after seeing her whip innocent students into lockers.

* * *

They were in Kurt's basement, working on their laptops and putting the finishing touches on their Madonna video they'd shot with Sue.

"Ugh, your jawline looks so good here," Blaine said without really thinking about it.

"Where?" Kurt asked curiously. From his position on the floor, Blaine tilted the screen so Kurt could see it from the couch and Kurt hooked his chin over Blaine's shoulder to get a better view.

The warmth and weight of Kurt's head in the crook of his shoulder made Blaine momentarily forgot what he was doing, and Kurt prodded him in the back of the neck when he didn't respond.

"Oh uh, kind of in every frame you're in. You were arching your neck a lot. It really worked for you."

He could feel Kurt's cheek lift against his when he smiled, and when he answered, his warm breath travelled across his chest. "Thanks. I think I'm finally losing my baby fat. What do you think?"

He pulled back, prompting Blaine to turn around, hiding his embarrassing boner beneath his laptop. Kurt tilted his head from side to side experimentally. "My cheeks are definitely less bulbous, right?"

"Your cheeks were never _bulbous_, Kurt," he replied with a frown. "You've always been…" His tongue tripped up while Kurt stared at him expectantly. What word was he supposed to use? Beautiful? Attractive? Hot? All applied but he didn't want to use them in case Kurt asked follow up questions. "Handsome," he finished unsurely.

Kurt snorted. "Okay, suck up."

"What? It's true," he said, brows high.

"Blaine, please. No teenager is considered 'handsome'," he said, giving him a look. "No teenager even _calls_ another teenager handsome."

"Well I just did. Because it's true."

"You're entirely too ridiculous," he insisted, his face faintly red.

"You are welcome," he said, settling back against the couch and focusing on his laptop again.

Kurt followed suit, and after a few moments he said, "Blaine."

"Hm?"

"You're handsome, too."

Blaine smiled without looking around.

* * *

When they next saw Sue at school, she spoke in third person a bit too much but apparently had learned a nice lesson about accepting herself, and changing others.

"Starting with you two," she added, which sounded ominous, but actually just presented them with a really great opportunity, especially when Jesse St. James, lead of Vocal Adrenaline, transferred to McKinley to be with Rachel.

"Haven't they only been dating for like, a week?" Blaine asked as they walked out of glee rehearsal.

But Kurt had bigger things on his mind. "Well, there goes every chance of me ever getting a solo in that godforsaken club," he sighed bitterly.

"Ladies," Sue said, drifting up behind them like a shark. "Have you thought about my proposition?"

Kurt and Blaine shared a look. They'd been on the fence about joining the Cheerios, knowing how much crap they'd have to put up with from Sue, not to mention the huge workload that would come with Cheerios, New Directions, and normal schoolwork. But neither of them were liable to turn down an opportunity to perform, and that wasn't going to change now.

"We're in," they said together.

* * *

Kurt was standing in front of the full length mirror in Blaine's room, checking himself out in his Cheerios uniform for the first time, and complaining about how he wouldn't be able to wear his own clothes to school for the foreseeable future.

"At least you look good in yours," Blaine said, lying in his bed and trying to inconspicuously check him out. "I just look even shorter than usual. Also, I am really going to miss my bowties."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "The perception of your height has not changed. Come on, stand up."

He did as he was told, standing beside Kurt in his red and white Cheerios uniform and making a face in the mirror.

"We look great," Kurt surmised after looking their reflections up and down. "And you know why? Because these uniforms mean solos. Recognition. Power. You think Sue's going to let those buffoons on the football team shove her star Cheerios around? Nope. They can't touch us now," he finished smugly, plunking a piece of lint off Blaine's shoulder.

"I do think you're getting taller than me, though," Blaine said when he was finished.

"Oh hush," he swatted him before going back to picking at strands of his hair to make it lay right.

There was a knock at the bedroom door and then his dad stepped inside. As per usual whenever he saw Kurt, his lips twisted like there was a particularly bad taste in his mouth, before they smoothed into a less offensive hard line. It was why they rarely hung out at Blaine's house.

"Dad," he said in surprise. "I thought you were working late tonight."

"It didn't take me as long as I thought, but what in heaven's name are you two _wearing_?" he asked, eyeing their matching uniforms in bewilderment.

Kurt was silent, as he tended to be around Blaine's father. He had this idea in his head that talking around him would only make him dislike him more, which Blaine hadn't actually been able to argue with when he'd told him.

Blaine gulped, gaze sweeping from Kurt's wide blue eyes to his father's stern ones. He could make up some lie, like Kurt had when Mr. Hummel found them dancing along to 'Single Ladies'. But football season was over and besides, in every sitcom he'd ever seen that featured a character creating some absurd lie, they were always found out, usually under hilarious circumstances, which Blaine never actually found that amusing.

Besides, Blaine was confident in himself, his sexuality, and his gender. He wasn't going to cater to his dad's outdated sensibilities when he was so excited to perform his first cheer routine in front of the school in a few days.

He lifted his chin, ready for an attack, and replied confidently, "We joined the cheerleading team."

His father stared at him, as if waiting for the end of the joke.

"Quick reminder that I am gay, so this shouldn't come as too much of a shock," he said to his father's blank face. "Not that every male cheerleader is gay or anything. But I am fully aware of your perception of gays, so…" His voice trickled off into the tense silence of the room.

His dad closed his eyes, letting out a breath through his nose. "Okay," he said quietly. He turned his head, looking into the hallway as he said, "I'm going to make dinner. Please be dressed in appropriate attire and have your friend gone by the time I'm done."

He waited a beat longer for a response, but Blaine just nodded and his father wouldn't make eye contact with him, so he left.

Blaine met Kurt's eyes in the mirror and tried to hitch a smile onto his lips. "Could've gone worse," he said weakly.

Kurt put a warm hand on his shoulder, and Blaine step forward into his arms, letting his familiar scent wash over him to soothe him.

* * *

Luckily, Cheerios was a great distraction from his father's lack of response to the news.

And more specifically, _Kurt_ turned out to be quite adept at keeping his mind off things, though he was doing so unknowingly.

If he thought he was going to die from sexual frustration during rehearsals, it was nothing compared to the pep rally. He lit up in front of the crowd, growling out the lines, swaying his hips, and sending Blaine sultry glances as the song dictated.

Blaine wasn't actually sure how he made it through the number without spontaneously combusting. The applause for them at the end felt like congratulations for the performance as well as him not melting into a puddle of goo. He didn't know how he was expected to continue to work like this.

When they'd finished, Schuester of course had to be all indignant about their decision to join the Cheerios without telling him. Blaine let Kurt answer. His eyes followed a drop of sweat trailing down his neck under the pretense of listening to him speak.


	11. Home

"Sloppy babies!" Sue boomed into her megaphone. "If the next performance of this routine isn't absolute perfection, I will have each and every one of you charged with crimes that will get you sent to Guantanamo Bay!"

To Blaine's left, Santana released a huff of annoyed air. "It's all this idiot right here," she said, pointing at him. "He fucks up in the third quarter, and it throws everybody else off for the rest of the routine."

Blaine blushed guiltily because he knew it was true. It just so happened that at a certain part in the dance, Kurt bends over at the same time as Blaine is walking behind him, and his brain always turned to sludge from there.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Sorry doesn't win me Nationals trophies, Hobbit! If you continue this deplorable behaviour, I'm going to have force you to wear a dunce cap whenever you're not cheering."

* * *

"Blaine, I- I'm going to have to bedazzle that cap."

He sighed, adjusting the white coned cap on his head. "At least I'm taller now, right?"

"I still can't believe she was serious," Kurt said, frowning at him apologetically. "Come over to my house after school and I'll help you with the part you keep screwing up, okay?"

He nodded just as Azimio and Karofsky blocked their way in the hallway.

"It's like you _want_ us to beat you up," Karofsky laughed, flicking Blaine's ostentatious cap.

"If you hadn't noticed, we're Cheerios now," Kurt said, crossing his arms over his chest intimidatingly.

"Yeah, congrats on your gayness."

"What he means is that Coach Sylvester isn't going to stand for you harassing the newest additions of her team," Blaine said, smirking smugly despite the ridiculous hat he was wearing.

"You think we're scared of Sue?" Azimio scoffed, though his eyes shifted nervously.

"I think you should be," Kurt laughed, looking pointedly down the hall to where Sue was roaring like a dinosaur in some kid's face for stepping on her heel.

The footballers glared at them before stomping off.

"It worked," Kurt said breathlessly.

"Huzzah!" They high-fived and laughed in relief.

"Okay, I have to go work on a project with Mercedes, but I'll see you later," Kurt grinned, putting a hand on his arm before sashaying away.

Blaine watched him go until he noticed someone staring at him.

"Someone's got it _bad_," Santana crowed.

Blaine's cheeks flamed and he turned away. "Leave me alone, Santana."

She laughed, skittering after him. "Come on, you're a Cheerio, now. That means you're allowed to talk to me about the guys you wanna boink."

"I don't-"

"And please don't insult my gaydar by insisting that you're straight. You were able to slip by unnoticed for a while, but as soon as you joined glee and started panting after Prancy Smurf it went off like crazy. Gay diddy gay gay." She flicked her fingers in front of his face like a flashing sign.

"Stop that." He slapped her hands away, annoyed.

She put a hand on her hip and leveled her gaze at him. "I've let your pathetic puppy dog eyes suffer long enough, Anderson. Your crush now has you fucking up the cheer routine, and as head Cheerio, I am taking it upon myself to remedy the problem. I'm coming over to your house after school and giving you Auntie Tana's crash course in seduction."

"No thanks."

"That wasn't an offer, dwarf. I'll be there at five."

* * *

"Hey Kurt-"

"Blaine-"

"What's up?" Blaine asked, getting books out of his locker. He needed to tell Kurt he wouldn't be able to come over after school because Santana was insisting on coming over. But he still didn't have a fake excuse for Santana's sudden interest, so he let Kurt speak first.

"Okay, so you know how my dad's been dating Carole for the last month or so?" Kurt began, looking a bit nervous for some reason.

"Yeah," he nodded. He'd met her once or twice in passing at Kurt's house. She was a really nice lady and Kurt had slowly but surely been bringing her wardrobe into the new millennium. "They're still going strong, right? Your dad seems to really like her."

"Yes, yeah they're good. Great even," he said, voice higher than normal. Blaine started to get suspicious of his apprehension. "She's actually um, in the process of moving into our house. With her son."

"Wow," Blaine said, brows raised. "They sure aren't messing around, are they? How old is her kid?"

"Our age," he said. He looked down at the strap of his satchel and mumbled, "It's Finn."

"What was that?" Blaine asked, tilting his head to hear him better. The dunce cap nearly fell off his head and he internally cursed Sue for the hundredth time that day.

"Carole is Finn's mom," Kurt said. Blaine stopped fiddling with the hat to stare at him. He added in a rush, "And I sort of introduced them at a parent-teacher night, because remember how I liked Finn? Yeah, I set our parents up like a month ago because I thought that would make Finn and I closer and the plan worked way too well because now we're going to have to share a room, and that's why I'm going to be redecorating by the way, and anyway yeah tonight we're all going to Breadstix to bond as a family so I can't help you with the cheer routine."

Blaine blinked, letting the mass of information settle in his brain. "Um, okay?"

"Okay?" Kurt breathed, eyes wide. "You're not mad?"

"What? About you blowing me off? It's no problem, we can do it some other time," he assured him, still not understanding his friend's distress.

"No I mean, about how I manipulated my father and Finn's mother into entering a relationship because I wanted Finn to like me," he finished with a mutter.

"Oh. No. It's well…" It was a _totally_ Kurt thing to do. He did whatever it took to get what he wanted, even if it was unconventional and arguably nuts. "It happened. But I'm not gonna fight with you about Finn again, remember?"

He nodded quickly. "Yeah, that's why I didn't want to mention it. I introduced them before we had the fight, and I didn't tell you when I did because I knew how much you didn't like Finn."

"Yeah, I definitely would have tried to talk you out of it if you'd told me," Blaine agreed. "But what's done is done, right? And your dad and Carole seem really happy, so at least it turned out okay."

Kurt smiled in relief. "Right. Okay. Good. Thank you for understanding."

"Of course," he said, squeezing his shoulder in comfort. He paused, wanting to know if Kurt still had feelings for Finn, but not wanting to ask if the answer would be in the affirmative. He was pretty sure he'd been mooning over Finn less lately, but maybe he was just downplaying it in front of Blaine because he thought he'd get annoyed again.

He was about to bite the bullet and ask him, when the man himself jogged up and interrupted their conversation. "Hey Kurt, why are our parents- Wait, what the hell is on your head, dude?"

Kurt looked at Blaine and rolled his eyes. "I'll see you later."

He walked away with Finn, explaining the beauty of middle-age romance.

* * *

Santana showed up at his house at a quarter after five, brushing past him immediately and heading to the kitchen, leaving a smiling Brittany in his doorway. He hadn't been expecting her, and he didn't even want Santana here, but there wasn't much he could do to get rid of either of them.

"So Santana tells me you're a dolphin?" Brittany said as Blaine ushered her in politely.

"Sorry?" he asked, uncomprehending.

"Oh, don't be. I like dolphins much more than sharks," she said, smiling in that vague way she always did.

"Okey dokey," Santana called, walking back into the foyer with a banana in one hand and a square foil packet in the other. "Let's get this show on the road."

Blaine wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but a sex education lesson had definitely not been it.

"_No_," he said, staring at the yellow fruit in disbelief.

"You're lucky I'm not making you use yours," she replied, nodding at his crotch. Blaine instantly felt the urge to cover himself. He couldn't understand how so many guys had let Santana near their dick; she was _scary_. "Now get your ass in the living room."

Once they were all seated, Blaine tried to stop the madness. "If you only came over to show me how to use a condom, I'm going to have to disappoint you by telling you that the sex ed classes at my old school were obviously better than those at McKinley's, because I already know how to put one on. I also know how babies are made, a lesson that Finn obviously slept through."

Brittany rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows how babies are made. The stork brings them."

Blaine was going to pretend that she was kidding to focus on the matter at hand. "Furthermore, though I appreciate what you're trying to do, which I'm assuming is making me feel included on the squad, I do not need your help with boys."

"So you got a plan to get in Kurt's pants, then?" Santana asked, thankfully setting the banana and condom down on the coffee table.

Blaine slid them to the other end, away from her. "No, I don't want to-"

"Bull," Santana accused. "You could not stop salivating over him at practice today."

"No, I mean I don't want to 'get into his pants'. I just, I really like him, but he's also my best friend and I don't wanna mess-"

"_Yawn_," she interrupted. "That's so boring. And _stupid_. Sex doesn't ruin anything."

"Sex is so much fun!" Brittany enthused. "And you and Kurt would be so good at it. You're both really flexible and pretty."

"Thank you, Brittany," he said reluctantly. "But I'm not just gonna, like, have sex with him out of the blue. If we ever, somehow, got together it's not like we'd hop into bed immediately. I just want to make that clear."

"So just start dating then, oh my god," Santana groaned, throwing herself against the back of the couch. "Your hormones are stinking up every room you're in."

"When that happens to my cat we lock him out of the house," Brittany said quietly.

"Yeah, but how do you expect me to bring that up with him?" Blaine asked Santana.

She put her chin in her hand, thinking, and then suggested, " 'Damn boy, you're looking fine in that knee-length sweatshirt. Let's go on three obligatory dates and then fuck.' "

Blaine sighed. This conversation was exactly as helpful as he'd expected it to be.

"Don't talk to him about it," Brittany said. "Just start kissing him and if you both like it keep going. If not, then stop. It's what Santana did and it worked for us."

Blaine tilted his head in confusion. "What?"

"Seriously, you're making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be," Santana said, ignoring his question. "Just release some of that sexual tension so you can concentrate on the cheer routines instead of Hummel's ass. You look like an even bigger dork than usual wearing that fucking dunce cap on your head, and Coach _will_ make you wear it until you stop screwing it up, so _stop screwing up_."

"I will, I promise," Blaine sighed.

"So you're gonna ask him out?"

"No."

"You're a disappointment."

And Blaine could tell she was ready to leave, but unfortunately that was when his father got home from work. He was about as excited to see two female cheerleaders in his living room as anybody had any right to be.

"Blaine," he smiled. "Would you like to introduce me to these lovely ladies?"

"Brittany and Santana," he muttered, pointing to each of them in turn. "They're on the cheer squad. Just like I am. And no, I'm not going to be having sex with either one of them."

"Then why is there a condom on the coffee table?"

Blaine's face went beet red and Santana smiled sweetly, even though Santana being sweet was about as genuine as the Devil offering a fair deal. "We were talking about boys," she said, ruffling Blaine's hair. He swatted at her and then she grimaced at her hand. "You need to lay off the gel, Hobbit."

"Would either of you ladies like to stay for dinner?" his father asked politely. Except it wasn't just out of politeness, because he had never _once_ offered to let Kurt to stay for dinner. He always requested that he return home before they ate.

Blaine shook his head incredulously.

"No thanks. I still need to explain the Great Depression to Brittany so she doesn't fail history," Santana said, standing up.

"What was so great about it?" she mused.

"We can show ourselves out," Santana said to Blaine's dad, waving at Brittany to follow her. "Think about what I said, Blaine," she added as she walked out. "And then, follow my instructions to a T."

They left and his father looked at him expectantly.

"I'm going to my room," he said tightly, keeping all his frustrations bottled up before blasting music in his room alone.

* * *

It took Blaine about a second to figure out something was bothering Kurt the next day.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he replied, too calmly. "Unless you count my father finding the straight, athletic son he's always wanted at dinner last night. A hint: It wasn't me."

Blaine empathised with him so hard. "What'd they talk about?"

"Sports," Kurt squeaked, leaning against his locker with a melancholy look on his face. "I can't compete with sports talk, Blaine. Unless my dad wants to learn about the safe way to construct a human pyramid."

"Did he at least notice how it was affecting you?" he asked.

He sighed. "Yeah. We talked about it after and he basically said to suck it up because he's had to pretend to care about all the stuff I like for years."

Blaine was pretty sure Mr. Hummel wouldn't have phrased it like that, but he understood where Kurt was coming from.

"So, I'm gonna have to break Carole and my dad up," Kurt said, determination creeping into his sad eyes.

"What? But Kurt, your dad's really happy-"

"It's either break them up or stick Finn in a dress to split the difference between us and I don't think he'll go for that," he snapped.

Blaine put his hands up in surrender. "Okay. How do you plan to do it?" This situation had the potential for a sitcom-esque failure of epic proportions, and Blaine hoped that Kurt had a fairly reasonable scheme in mind.

"I'm not sure. I'm gonna talk to Finn. I think he'll be open to helping with this. He doesn't want my dad replacing his dead father."

Blaine nodded. "If I can do anything to help…" he offered. Then he thought about what kind of plan Kurt might come up with and hastened to add, "Within reason."

Kurt gave him a small smile. "Thank you."

* * *

Due to both Kurt and Blaine's solemn moods, Blaine was finally able to get the routine down, which was good because it turned out that a writer from a cheerleading magazine was doing a piece on Coach Sylvester that day, and if Blaine had ruined that for her she would have shipped him to Peru. In pieces. Apparently Blaine had tuned her out the first time she mentioned it.

After the routine, they were in the locker room getting changed to go home.

"So, has that masterful brain come up with any plan to split your dad and Carole up yet?" Blaine asked, rubbing a towel through his wet hair. He still didn't think it was a very good idea, but he figured if Kurt broke them up, then they weren't meant to be anyway.

"If you put on some pants, I'll be able to hear you," Kurt replied mildly, fixing his hair in the mirror.

Blaine rolled his eyes, pulling his jeans on over his underwear. Throughout both football and Cheerios, Kurt had always been very modest, waiting until all the other guys had left the room to shower and change after practice. He was slightly more relaxed in Cheerios since it was only Blaine in the locker room, but he still didn't prance around naked, nor did he let Blaine.

Not that Blaine would have, but he had no qualms with standing around in his boxer briefs while he sorted out the rest of his clothes in his locker or dried his hair. But Kurt always refused to look at him until he was fully dressed.

"So?" Blaine asked expectantly. He tugged his tank top on over his head. "Anything brilliant?"

"I could sneak into the Hudson house," Kurt began, turning to face him.

"Sounds promising," he said dryly.

"And leave boxers strategically placed somewhere, and my dad will think Carole's been cheating."

"He'll think they're Finn's," Blaine corrected. "Also, I've seen that episode of _The Simpson's_."

Kurt grunted, not admitting to getting inspiration from cartoons. "We can make it look like Carole's been stealing from my dad!"

"Oh, and now that the plan's crazy, _I'm_ involved," he sighed, giving Kurt a look.

"Well do you have anything better?" he demanded, hands on his hips.

Blaine folded his towel, considering the best way to say this. "Maybe you shouldn't try to end their relationship? Your dad is obviously really happy with her if they're planning on moving in together and, I dunno, you set them up in the first place so-"

"Exactly. I need to fix my mistake," Kurt cut in. He spun back around to face the mirror and started aggressively rubbing moisturizer into his skin. "With your hatred of Finn, I thought you of all people would support me in this. Do you want him in my house when we stage impromptu performances of Broadway plays? I didn't think so."

"This isn't about Finn though," he pointed out. "This is about your dad-"

"It's about how Finn is my dad's ideal son," he said, staring into the sink. "He's straight and he's sporty and he wears plaid and his voice is at a normal pitch-"

"Hey- hey." Blaine dashed over to Kurt's side. Kurt's back shook beneath his palm as he rubbed it soothingly. "Yes, Finn is very straight. That doesn't make him your dad's son, though. You're his son. That's not going to change after a few football games with Finn."

"He's gonna like Finn better than me," he admitted his fears quietly.

"No. He won't. Your dad- he accepts you, Kurt. For who you are. He came into school and fought for your right to a solo, remember? He didn't do that to use up his breath," Blaine tried to comfort him.

"Yeah, and a few months ago he was grounding me for owning tiaras and bribing me to stop wearing form-fitting sweaters," he said, turning his face away from Blaine. "So what if, after hanging out with the golden boy, he goes back to discouraging who I am because he realizes that I'm not good enough?"

"Kurt," he said, heart dropping. He took his shoulder and tugged on him until his wet eyes met his. "Your dad is not my dad. He's not going to revoke his acceptance of you."

"How could you possibly know that?" he frowned.

"Because my dad's an asshole. Yours is not."

His face scrunched up sadly. It was obviously not a good enough answer, but Blaine didn't have any better ones, so he just defaulted to giving Kurt a hug.


	12. Bad Reputation

Kurt happened upon (i.e. stole) the most hilarious video Blaine had ever seen, which he promptly shared with the rest of the club, leading it to spread like wildfire on Youtube almost immediately.

Blaine would have felt guiltier about releasing Coach Sylvester's video of her dancing along to 'Physical' if she hadn't made him wear a dunce cap last week, and if it wasn't the first thing to make Kurt smile in days.

He could tell that Kurt was still worried about losing his dad to Finn, but the video and then the stupid 'Glist' provided him with a welcome distraction.

Kurt had gathered Mercedes, Tina and Artie around the piano that Blaine was softly plinking away at.

He placed the anonymously-composed list of the most sexually promiscuous glee members down on the piano top. "Fellow glee clubbers, our reputations have never been lower. We are at Def Con 1."

Blaine hit the keys hard, playing, _Dun dun dun._

"This is not a joke, Blaine," Kurt said to him.

"No, _we're_ the jokes," Tina said glumly.

"We got scored worse than Rachel Berry," Mercedes complained. "We aren't even on the damn list."

"Well," Artie put in, "Blaine is."

"I'm just as baffled as you guys," he said. Right between Matt Rutherford at 5 and Rachel at -5, there he was at a cool zero.

"'Baffled' isn't the word I would use," Mercedes said, lips pursed.

Blaine leaned back in his seat. "Are you- Are you guys seriously mad that I made it onto this ridiculous list?"

"I just don't understand why you seem to have a worse reputation than us," Artie said lightly.

"You realize I'm at zero, right? It was probably just to further infuriate Rachel." He took the page off the piano looked it over. "Also, this is just a list ranked on sexual exploits. Are you really surprised we aren't on it?"

But they had noticed Brittany still sitting in the choir room for some reason and hadn't heard him.

Blaine rolled his eyes and, as they talked to the Cheerio, grabbed a pen from his bag to scribble out the top four names and replace it with Kurt, Tina, Mercedes and Artie's. He slapped it down when he was done saying, "There. Happy?"

Tina narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you joking?"

"What? That has just as much integrity as the original list. It's some random person's guess as to who's been the most scandalous. Can we not worry about this anymore?"

"No, it's been decided. We're dancing in the library," Kurt said with a determined nod.

"What?"

"We're gonna get ourselves a bad reputation," Mercedes said smugly.

They all seemed very pleased with their plan, and since they seemed to be mad at him, he decided to just go with it. "Anyway I can help?" he sighed.

Kurt smiled at him, and he knew it would be worth it.

* * *

So Kurt, Blaine, Artie, Tina, Mercedes and Brittany performed 'Can't Touch This' in the library, which was super fun even if Blaine was worried about getting detention the whole time. There was something about the spontaneity of it that he really liked, which he assumed he'd gotten the taste for through glee club's constantly random performances.

Also, he got to dance on top of a table and wear parachute pants. What's not to like?

Unfortunately (except to Blaine), the librarian ended up loving their performance and expressed interest in them performing at her church.

"Well that was a bust," Mercedes sighed, disappointed, as they gathered in the choir room afterwards.

"How could disrupting the library not earn us bad reputations?" Kurt wondered aloud.

"It's because only dweebs like you think that pissing off the librarian is the worst thing you can do," Santana announced from the doorway. She rolled her eyes as she joined them in their seats. "Nobody cool even knows where the library _is_."

"Well, at least we had fun-"

Kurt waved a hand dismissively at Blaine to shut him up. "What would you suggest, Satan?"

Her lips twisted into a tell-tale smirk, and Blaine braced himself for the worst. "Any of you losers ever hear of a little place called Scandals?"

* * *

"If I'd known it was this easy to get a fake ID I'd have gotten one years ago," Tina said that night as they waited around Mercedes' car in the parking lot of the club Santana had directed them to.

"For what?" Mercedes asked.

Her cheeks darkened. "They have really nice corsets in sex shops, okay?"

"Are we going to stand here all night talking about weird prepubescent fantasies or are we going into a bar to do some damage control on your reps?" Santana asked, staring them down.

"I still don't understand why you insisted on coming with us," Kurt said.

"Yeah, you're already second on the Glist."

"Unlike you dorks, I don't measure my coolness factor based off some stupid piece of paper. I came to make sure your geekiness doesn't rub off on my girl Brittany."

"Can we go dancing now?" the girl in question whined.

"Yes. If sneaking into a bar while underage doesn't make us bad asses then nothing will," Kurt nodded. His nervousness was betrayed only by the white-knuckled grip he kept on his fake ID.

Blaine was just glad he'd stopped trying to break up Carole and his dad.

"Shall we?" He offered his arm.

Kurt looped his arm through his with a thankful smile and they made their way across the parking lot.

The group got into the club without a problem, and once they were inside Santana immediately hustled them over to the bar. "Okay, everybody drink."

While everyone except Mercedes, the DD, deliberated on what to order, Blaine looked around the small bar with interest. There was a juke box in the corner that he was eager to check out, a pool table, a disco ball, some rainbow flags on the wall, two guys making out in a corner booth…

"Santana," he said, also noticing some Madonna posters and a drag queen sipping on a margarita.

"What's up, Blanderson? Picked your poison yet?" she asked, holding up her fruity pink drink.

"Is this a gay bar?" he squeaked.

"What?" Kurt asked, spinning around on his seat, cocktail in hand.

She winked at Blaine, miming a blow job and nodding at Kurt, which he thankfully missed.

"Oh my God," Kurt intoned, obviously spotting the same tell-tale signs that Blaine had. "We have to get out of here."

"Whoa, what's your problem?" Santana asked, pushing him back down into his seat. "You're gay, aren't you?"

His cheeks flushed. "That is beside the point. This isn't going to get us any higher on the Glist!"

She rolled her eyes. "Who gives a shit about that stupid Glist? Don't you wanna have fun? Make out with boys?"

"Can I talk to you in private?" Blaine cut in, dragging her away before she could respond. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"You should be thanking me, Hobbit. You are now at a gay bar with your crush. Get drunk, get grinding, get your head in the game." She smacked his forehead. "Try to tell me this isn't the perfect place for you two to fall in love?"

Blaine glared at her balefully as he rubbed his head. "The effects of alcohol-"

"One drink won't kill you. And nobody's going to yell shit at you if you two end up humping like dogs in heat on the dance floor- which I expect to see. Now drag his tight ass off into a dance instead of staring at it lustfully like usual." She pushed him back to the bar, making him stumble into Kurt's back.

He jumped and spun around to face him.

"Um. May I have this dance?" Blaine asked, holding out his hand nervously.

Kurt's eyes bulged. "Are you serious? You want us to stay?"

He shrugged. "Why not? We're already here, right?" Now that Blaine thought about it, he was kind of grateful to Santana for bringing them here. All he wanted to do that night was dance with Kurt, which wouldn't be advisable in any normal bar in Ohio. "And," he said, leaning forward scrunching his face, "we _are_ gay, so."

"Th- they aren't," he stuttered, waving at the rest of their friends already on the dance floor.

"Looks like they're having fun anyway," he said, watching Brittany teach Tina how to do a body roll. "What do you say we join them?"

Kurt let Blaine lead him to their friends, eyes shifting around nervously while Blaine shot him encouraging smiles as they began to dance.

* * *

After a few songs, Blaine inspected the juke box to find that it had tons of show tunes which he immediately began playing, much to Kurt's enthusiasm. He finally started to relax, his shoulders shimmying a little more willingly, his voice a little stronger as he sang along to the music. It sounded stupid, but Blaine was so happy to see Kurt happy.

The group owned the dance floor. They sang loudly (and on-tune; even after a few drinks they were still glee kids) and danced elaborately, and no one asked them if they were old enough to be in there, or told them to calm down or asked if it was really _right_ how close Kurt and Blaine (or Santana and Brittany for that matter) were dancing.

Blaine loved not having to worry about what other people thought when his hands lingered on Kurt's hips, or the way his eyes zeroed in on Kurt's tongue when he licked his lips. He only had to think about what Kurt wanted, what Kurt was comfortable with, and from his ever-present smile and his hands tight on Blaine's shoulders, he was enjoying himself just as much as Blaine was.

Santana picked a song from the juke box and strode back over to them with a wicked smirk on her face. "In the spirit of this week's glee assignment, I present you with Rod Stewart's classic love ballad. Blaine, I think you know what to do?"

He tilted his head, listening to the opening chords of the song and realizing the irony she used the words 'classic love ballad' with. He shot her an incredulous look, and she mouthed along to the background lyrics, "Sugar, sugar" before pointing insistently at him to take over.

His eyes flicked to Kurt, who was watching him, lips quirked in amusement as he waited to see if he'd obey. And, well, Blaine was never one to turn down a solo.

"_She sits alone, waiting for suggestions_," he sang, standing at arm's length from Kurt, still holding his hand. "_His lips are dry, her heart is gently pounding_."

He thumped on his chest, spinning a blushing Kurt in a circle. "_Don't you just know _exactly_ what they're thinking_?"

"Blaine!" he laughed, skittering behind Mercedes to distance himself from his ridiculousness.

Blaine shrugged, pulling a nearby Tina into his arms. "_If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, come on, sugar, let me know_."

She giggled and kissed his cheek before passing him off to Brittany. "_If you really need me just reach out and touch me, come on, honey, tell me so._"

She smacked him on the butt and Blaine was sort of regretting doing this now but he wasn't about to give up halfway through a performance. She took the lead over the musical bridge and then he dropped her off with Santana before returning to Kurt.

"_He's acting shy, looking for an answer_," he sang, over-exaggeratedly batting his eyelashes. "_Aw come on, honey_." Kurt pretended to ignore him, looking at an autographed picture of David Bowie on the wall. "_Let's spend the night together_."

Kurt's face flushed red and Blaine threw his hands up, palms out. "_Now hold on a minute, before we go much further. Give me a dime, so I can call my mother_."

He rolled his eyes at Blaine's hand telephone, and then Blaine pulled him forward to dance with him through the rest of the verse until he ran away just before the chorus. He sang to Mercedes and then Artie and then Santana pushed Kurt into his arms again.

Blaine smiled at him, one hand on his hip and the other firmly ensconced in Kurt's and spun them around during the slightly more intense part of the song. "_Relax, baby, now we're all alone_," he crooned softly, accidentally backing into a wall.

Their eyes met, chests flush against each other's. Kurt's mouth was slightly agape, red and shining in the low light of the club. Blaine couldn't stop staring at it, which is why he noticed immediately when it was getting closer. His gaze jumped from Kurt's lips to his eyes, and found that they were focused on Blaine's lips, too. He could feel Kurt's heart beating just as fast as his own as he leaned forward towards him, his hand tightening around his own where it was pressed against the wall.

His eyelids fell shut and he tilted his head forward just the slightest bit, feeling Kurt's warm breath ghosting over his face. Kurt pressed his lips to Blaine's tentatively, so soft that they were barely there, but it was the most incredible moment of his life regardless. He sighed into the kiss, pressing forward a little so their lips were connected more firmly. Kurt moved his hand from Blaine's shoulder to his face, stroking his cheekbone with his thumb as their mouths moved slowly against each other's.

"Geddit, Anderson!" Santana's cry caused Kurt to tear away from him, cheeks burning red.

"Kurt." He reached out for him, but Kurt spun away.

"It's time to go home now," he said, and Blaine barely heard him over the music.

"Kurt, I-"

"I want to go home," he repeated in a tone that left no room for argument.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed, heart in his shoes.

The car ride home was eerily quiet, the seven of them crammed into Mercedes' mom's minivan but none of them making any attempts at conversation. They'd all seen Kurt and Blaine kiss, as well as Kurt's entirely awkward blow-off of Blaine after.

"I can give you guys lessons," Brittany offered after Tina and Artie had been dropped off. Blaine clenched his hands in his lap, but nobody said anything except Santana who tried to shush her. "No but like, somebody must have done something wrong, right? While they were kissing," she added as if any of them were in doubt about what she was talking about.

He coughed past the lump in his throat and leaned towards her. "Brittany, can you just stop talking about it please?"

"Well it was the most exciting thing that happened in there, I don't know why nobody's talking about it!"

Mercedes pulled up into Kurt's driveway and he shot out after muttering a quick, "Thanks for the drive."

As soon as he shut the door Blaine started breathing so deeply and quickly that he thought he was going to hyperventilate. "Why did that _happen_?" he gasped.

"Oh so we're talking about you two kissing now?" Brittany asked. "It was hot."

"Santana, that went wrong. That went very wrong!" he accused, gulping down air. "You said nothing could go wrong!"

She shrugged. "Maybe it's different for gay boys. How the hell am I supposed to know? It would've worked on me, sorry your guy's a prude."

"Oh God. It's gone. It's all… I fucked it all up," he rambled, running a hand through his hair. They kissed and it was magical and everything he'd been dreaming of for months and then Kurt basically ran away from him. "Shit."

He got out his phone and started scrolling through his contacts.

"What is he doing?" Mercedes asked from the driver's seat, peeking at him through the rear view mirror.

"I'm gonna text Kurt," he said.

"Oh no, I don't think drunk texting is gonna help any."

Santana snorted. "He's not drunk. None of us are."

"How would you know?" Mercedes asked as Blaine started typing up a message of apology.

Santana reached over his seat and stole his phone from him.

"Hey!"

She stuck it in her bra. "There wasn't any alcohol in those drinks. You virgins just couldn't tell the difference."

"But we- we were acting silly-"

"Um, you people always do that. And anyway, so was Mercedes." She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Contrary to beer commercials, you don't actually _need_ alcohol to have a good time. Ya'll were stone cold sober."

"But didn't everybody order boozey drinks?" Mercedes asked.

"Yeah, I guess Hummel's baby face gave away that we're sophomores in high school," she replied dryly.

"Then can I have my phone back please?" Blaine asked in a small voice.

She smacked him on the head. "If he wanted to talk to right this second, he would be. You can wait 'til tomorrow, gel head."

* * *

Blaine indeed waited until tomorrow, wherein Kurt ignored him as if he were actually carrying the bubonic plague.

After Rachel presented her disasterpiece of 'Run, Joey, Run', they weren't really doing anything in Glee, so Blaine went to sit beside Kurt and hopefully figure it out.

"Kurt," he said. "We kind of need to talk."

He nodded, gaze stuck on the floor. "Yeah, I'm um, sorry. About last night."

"What?"

"We were drunk, and if we could just um not talk about it ever again and pretend it didn't happened, that would be great," he said quietly, fiddling with his cufflinks.

He didn't think it was possible, but he felt even worse than he had the night before when Kurt asked to go home immediately after they had their first kiss. "Why?" he asked, voice broken.

Kurt snapped his head up to look at him, brows furrowing as he took in the heartbroken look on Blaine's face. "Why are you so upset?"

"Why would I want to forget my first kiss with you, Kurt?" he replied, eyes wide.

"What do you mean? Blaine, we were drunk, I didn't-"

"No we weren't! The bartender didn't serve us drinks with any alcohol," he told him. "Kurt, I'm sorry, but that kiss meant something to me. I'm not going to forget it."

Kurt stared at him, lips parted. "What- what did it mean to you?" he asked, voice raspy.

For the first time in the conversation Blaine felt optimistic, because he saw no trepidation or horror in Kurt's expression, just a very tentative hope.

Blaine swallowed down his nervousness and carefully took one of Kurt's hands in his. "Kurt, you are my best friend. And you're smart, and talented, and brave, and… _handsome_," his mouth twitched into a smile at Kurt's widening eyes. "And I just want to be with you. That's really it. And I thought that kiss might be the start of something... new between us."

Kurt stared at him, mouth open. "And by 'new' you mean, like. More kissing?"

He smiled. "If you wanted to. If not, ignore me and let me crawl into a hole for eternity."

"I- I. Really?" he asked breathlessly.

"Yeah. I take it you're… receptive to the idea?" he asked, a bit of tension releasing from his chest.

He nodded quickly, eyes bright. "Yes. Oh my God, Blaine. How is that even a question?"

Blaine grinned, practically bouncing in his chair. He brought Kurt's hand in his up to his mouth, kissed it quickly, leaving Kurt red as a tomato.

"Blaine," he muttered, looking around.

"Sorry. I'm excited."

"You look like a puppy," he laughed, face open and content. "How long have you wanted… Us to kiss?"

Blaine looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "Push It," he admitted with a blush.

He frowned. "Push wha- Oh my God. The _performance_? That was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life!"

He shrugged. "I had to admire anybody with the guts… and hips, to do that."

Kurt slapped his arm. "You are ridiculous."

"But you like it," he smiled widely.

He side-eyed him, lips slowly tugging up at the corners. "Yeah. I guess I do."

**The song Blaine sang was Do You Think I'm Sexy by Rod Stewart, and Darren sang a cover of it for the Warblers and also live on the piano, so go check that out. Comments are always appreciated :)**


	13. Laryngitis

They hung out over the weekend, giddily smiling as Kurt ordered his tea and Blaine bought his coffee. Shy touches of hands over the table, and a soft kiss goodbye at the end of the night.

Blaine felt like he was walking on air, and not even his father asking if there was a lucky lady in his life could bring him down.

On Monday, after Schue announced that the assignment for the week was to find a song that reflects who they are and sing it in front of everyone to 'find their voice', Kurt was immediately excited.

"Solos in front of everyone. _Finally_. I am going to kill this assignment. If there's one thing I know, it's my voice," he said to Blaine smugly as they left the choir room. "I have the exact same vocal range as 16th century Castrato, Orlando Delasso. But do you know what he didn't have?"

"Balls," Blaine said.

"Blaine!" he cried, trying not to laugh.

"Sorry, was that a rhetorical question?" he asked, not quite able to tone down the heart eyes even with Kurt hitting his shoulder in reprimand.

"Yes! My answer was 'a Whitney Houston song'."

"Kurt!" Mr. Hummel's voice made them both turn around.

His smile disappeared. "Dad. What are you doing here? Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, everything's fine," he rushed to assure him.

Blaine watched Kurt's face fall further as his dad explained that he was taking Finn to a football game, and when Kurt asked why he'd never done that with him, he laughed and said, "Whenever I try to get you to watch a game, you just start complaining about all the players wearing stirrup pants."

"Because there's never an excuse for stirrup pants!" he retorted squeakily.

But Mr. Hummel didn't notice his distress and that's when Finn came out of his class to say that he was ready to go. "I'll see you later, Kurt. You too, Blaine. Keep him company tonight, will you?"

Kurt watched, dumbstruck, as his father walked away to spend quality time with another person's kid.

"Kurt-" Blaine began, hand coming up to rest on his shoulder.

"Don't," he said quietly, shaking his head.

* * *

A few days later, Blaine slipped into glee club just in time to catch the tail end of Finn singing 'Jessie's Girl', and the baffling encouragement of Schue, who called it a 'soul-exposing' song.

Blaine turned to mutter to Kurt that the only thing he'd exposed was that he only wanted Rachel when he couldn't have her, but then remembered he wasn't next to him. He looked around the room, but didn't see him at first glance. Upon closer inspection, he found Kurt slouched in his seat, wearing overalls and a trucker hat.

Granted, Kurt was pretty fearless in the fashion department, but Blaine didn't understand what he was going for with this outfit at all.

He walked over to sit in front of Kurt as Puck got ready for his performance. "That's certainly a new fashion statement," Blaine said, thinking maybe it was from some old movie Kurt hadn't shown him yet.

"It's not a fashion statement," he said, his voice weirdly low.

Blaine looked to Tina for a clue as to what was going on, but she just shrugged helplessly.

"Um, are- are you sick?" he asked Kurt, treading lightly. Kurt had made him skip Cheerios practice with him the other night to watch movies and cuddle in his room; he thought it was because he was upset about his dad but maybe he was starting to feel under the weather too.

He shook his head, unusually subdued.

"Okay… Do you want me to hang out tonight?" He was at a complete loss as to what to do. "Do you need to watch _The Notebook_ again?"

He grimaced. "That chic flic? No. You know what I heard was a good movie? _Die Hard_."

"You love _The Notebook_," he said, face twisting in confusion.

"And you said that Bruce Willis gives you chest pains," Tina said, just as baffled as Blaine by Kurt's sudden demeanour shift. "And not the good kind like from Taylor Lautner."

Realization gradually began to dawn on Blaine, and his confusion turned to horror.

"Kurt, are you-?" He scrambled around in his chair, almost knocking it over in the process to lean in closer to Kurt. "Are you pretending to be like- like _Finn_ to win your father's favour?"

He frowned, gaze turning to the ground. "I had a talk with Coach Sylvester. She made me realize that things might not be exactly like I thought they were."

Why did the teachers at this school ever try to be knowledgeable about anything? They only screwed everything up.

"Kurt, look at me," he pleaded, reaching for his hands. Kurt slid them away from him and Blaine's heart stuttered in his chest. "Kurt, please-"

"Blaine," Mr. Schuester called. "We have another performance. Please pay attention."

But he _was_ paying attention. Paying attention to the way his best friend was slipping away from him in front of his eyes.

"Blaine," Schuester repeated in a more authoritative tone.

Blaine reluctantly turned back around in his chair, trying to will away the overwhelming disappointment in his chest.

* * *

"It's probably just a phase," Tina said at lunch. They sat with the other glee clubbers, Kurt at the opposite end of the table, not even glancing in Blaine's direction. "Like the week when he wore all that animal print."

"He won't even look at me," he mumbled around the straw of his juice box.

"Did you use too much teeth?" Brittany asked. "Guys don't like that."

"He's not mad at me. He's just… not being himself," he finished, gaze not straying from his profile.

"Do you mean he's a robot, or he's been replaced by an alien?" she asked seriously.

"We _just_ started going out," he said. He poked his salad miserably, not hungry in the slightest. "This is all Finn's fault, you know," he grumbled.

"Are you guys gonna fight each other?"

He glared at her without moving his head and Santana put a hand on her arm. "Britt, Blaine's PMS-ing pretty bad, right now. You better not disturb him."

"You know exactly why I'm upset," he accused.

"Yeah, well complaining never did anybody any good," Santana retorted. "So go suck his dick or something to remind him that he's gay."

"But watch the teeth," Brittany said. "Remember, you're a dolphin, not a shark."

He sighed.

"You know, Kurt looks pretty miserable, too," Tina observed. "You should keep trying to talk to him. Maybe he'll crack sooner."

"Yeah, whatever," Santana rolled her eyes. "Just come to next week's Cheerios practices, for the love of _God_."

* * *

Blaine waited by Kurt's car after school. He had a plan. Sort of.

Kurt stopped dead in his tracks when he saw him. He kept his eyes trained on the window next to Blaine's head as he asked, "What do you want?"

"I thought we could go to your house and watch some football," he suggested.

"What?"

"Or baseball. Soccer. Any of that good stuff," he said.

Kurt had said many times that complaining about sports was infinitely more appealing than actually watching sports, but he still nodded slowly. "Okay. Sounds good."

"Great," Blaine smiled, climbing into his car.

Blaine's plan was to bore him to death with sports.

"Are you _sure_ you wouldn't rather watch the _Project Runway_ episode you have recorded?" Blaine raised a brow at him after an hour of baseball and Kurt's fifth sigh in the last ten minutes.

Kurt huffed, which was better than the grunts he'd been getting.

"No," he said, voice still deep and completely unlike Kurt. He picked up the remote, "But I guess we can channel surf."

He still hadn't looked Blaine in the eye yet, which hurt him more than he possibly thought it could.

Kurt spotted the opening credits for _The Deadliest Catch_, and stopped on that. It was one of his dad's favourite shows. They were watching it for a few minutes before Kurt said, "Wait, this is about fishing?"

"Yeah," Blaine replied. "What did you think it was about?"

"Um… hunting people?"

He tilted his head, biting back a laugh. "Were you thinking about _Mantracker_?"

"No. Don't laugh at me," he added with a pout, his voice finally slipping into his own register. "I swear there's a movie or book or something called _The Deadliest Catch_, and it's about hunting man." Blaine blinked at him sceptically. "Because man is the deadliest catch. Don't give me that look, I'm sure it's a thing!"

"I believe you," he nodded, grinning not so much because he was amused, but because the Kurt he'd been falling for for months was finally starting to peek through the weird disguise.

"I'm looking this up," he insisted, grabbing his phone. He searched it, muttering, "I know I'm right."

Blaine just nodded, smiling as he gazed at him. He heard the front door open as Kurt shouted, "Aha! 'The Deadliest _Game'_ is a short story by Richard Connell-"

"Since when do you like _Deadliest Catch_?" Mr. Hummel asked, back from work.

It was like a switch had been flipped. Kurt's perfect posture slumped, his back curving into the couch, legs spread with both feet planted on the floor. When he spoke his voice was lower again. "I told you, we have a lot more in common than I thought."

It shouldn't have made Blaine feel like somebody was tearing out his insides, but it did. It cut right to the heart of him to see his best friend disappear inside himself so abruptly. He had been right _there_, and now all that was left was a butch shadow of Kurt.

"I gotta go," he swallowed. "See ya, Kurt."

He waved at him from his place on the couch, not looking at him, and Blaine said goodbye to Mr. Hummel, hoping to God that he would talk to Kurt about his latest style.

* * *

The next day proved that Kurt and his father had obviously not had the heart-to-heart that he'd been hoping for, when Kurt sang a John Mellencamp song for glee.

Admittedly, when he growled out some of his lines it was pretty hot, but he was basically scowling throughout the whole thing, and the performance was so emphatically _not_ Kurt, and the entire club recognized that. Blaine mourned for the Whitney Houston song that Kurt had originally planned to sing.

After he was finished, the whole club stared at him, some looking back at Blaine, too. He was one of the few to diligently applaud, because even if he hadn't liked the reasoning behind it, it was still a good performance. And Kurt always deserved applause.

"What planet are you from?" Brittany asked when nobody said anything. "And more importantly, what have you done with Kurt?"

His jaw tightened, and his gaze briefly flicked to Blaine before he strode out of the choir room.

"So… you didn't blow him?" Santana guessed.

Blaine stood up. "I have to go talk to him."

"I don't know why you've been so upset with his new style, dude," Finn said. "I think it suits him."

He spun around to face him, not even bothering to conceal his rage. "_No_, you just like that he's not wearing skin tight jeans anymore because it interfered with your heteronormative belief system!" he shouted.

"What?" he asked dumbly.

"It means you're a homophobe, jackass," he explained heatedly. "And you're glad he's pretending to be straight now because you don't have to be scared of him trying to sneak a peek in the locker room. Which he never did; he was too scared to even change in the same room as you guys because he thought somebody was gonna beat him up."

Puck shifted in his chair guiltily at his last line.

Mr. Schuester came up behind Blaine and put a hand on his shoulder. "Finn didn't mean anything by it. I think you need to calm down-"

"I think everyone needs to stop defending this idiot!" he shouted, waving his hand at Finn. "He is _not_ God-sent, he couldn't even figure out that sex makes babies happen! Now if you'll _excuse_ me, I need to talk to Kurt."

He stomped out of the room, and thankfully found Kurt at the first place he looked, his locker.

"Kurt, please talk to me," he said softly, leaning against the locker next to Kurt.

"We're talking," he mumbled, rearranging books in his locker with no real purpose.

"Can I talk to _Kurt_, please?" he asked.

He turned his head to glare at him. "Don't patronize me."

A smile spread across his lips. "Hi Kurt."

Kurt's mouth was set in a hard line. "Can you not?"

"Not what?"

"Be too adorable for you own good."

"Sorry, I can't turn it off," he rolled his eyes, nudging Kurt's shoulder with his.

Kurt closed his eyes, bowing his head. "Blaine please, can I just-"

"Kurt, I know your reasoning behind your new wardrobe and attitude, and I understand you not wanting to lose your dad. But this is the absolute worst way to go about it. In my humble opinion," Blaine said. He kept his eyes locked with Kurt's, not letting him look away. "You are not happy this way. I am not happy this way. Your dad is not going to be happy when he realizes what you're doing, or _why_ you're doing it."

Blaine tentatively reached his hand out towards him, and when Kurt allowed him to lace their fingers together, he lit up. "You need to be you, Kurt. Because there is no one else like you. You don't need to pretend to be straight to make people like you. People already do. Your dad loves you and wants you to be happy, I guarantee it. I know it doesn't mean anything coming from me, because my relationship with my dad is shit right now. But you need to talk to your dad instead of just doing what you _think_ he wants."

His face crumpled, tears falling from his eyes. "I can't lose him, Blaine."

"You won't," he promised, squeezing his hand tightly. "I'm sure your dad enjoys having conversations with people who have higher IQ's than bananas, and he's not ever going to get that with Finn."

He let out a watery laugh, leaning his head on Blaine's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Blaine. I feel like such an asshole."

"You're not. You're exactly who you need to be," he said, stroking his hair.

Kurt slowly wrapped his arms his waist, and mumbled, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me until I sing my song for this week's glee assignment," he replied, smiling in anticipation.

"Right now?" he asked, lifting his head up to raise an eyebrow at him.

"If you're up for it."

"Yeah," he nodded, returning Blaine's grin with a small smile of his own.

Blaine checked that the coast was clear before pressing a kiss to each of Kurt's damp cheeks.

They walked back to the choir room, hand in hand because it was after school and the halls were largely abandoned, and scuttled back in while the rest of the club was doing vocal exercises.

"Mr. Schuester? I'd like to sing my song now."

He frowned at him. "Blaine, after your outburst-"

"That was me finding my voice," he cut him off cheekily. "And I want to sing for everybody."

He sighed, throwing his hands in the air. "Fine. Go ahead."

Blaine nodded in thanks, before settling Kurt into a seat front row center. Brittany and Tina grinned at him excitedly, and just before Blaine started speaking Santana mumbled, "This means you both have to stop missing Cheerios practice."

"Thank you, Santana, for that lovely introduction," he smiled. A few people laughed. "The song I have chosen speaks to me on a very deep level right now, and I'd like to dedicate it, and sing it with, someone very special to me."

Kurt furrowed his brow, and Blaine just winked as the band began to play. Realization dawned on his face quickly, and Rachel seemed to recognize the song too, squeaking excitedly despite her laryngitis.

"_Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight_," he began singing directly to Kurt, who had taken off his baseball cap and was gazing at Blaine, lips parted and turned up at the corners. "_I need help believing you're with me tonight_."

He didn't dance around like he usually did during performances. He let the emotion in his voice express more than jumping onto the piano ever could.

"_And just for this moment, as long as you're mine_." He reached out his hand, and Kurt slid his into it instantly, following Blaine to the center of the room as he continued singing.

Kurt sang his solo part beautifully, and then their voices mixed together, getting stronger as they went on, holding the long notes just barely because they kept smiling at each other and wanting to laugh.

Blaine brought their clasped hands up between their chests as they belted out the last line.

"_As long as you're mine_."

"What is it?" Kurt asked, following the dialogue of the play as the music died out.

"It's just," Blaine replied in turn, "for the first time I feel… _wicked_."

He squeezed their hands and kissed him.

* * *

The next day Kurt came to school dressed in a blue button up with an accentuating scarf and Blaine was so happy he could have cried.

"Well don't you look lovely," Blaine smiled as he leaned against the locker next to Kurt.

Kurt grinned. "Thanks. This feels so much better. I think I was getting a rash from all that flannel."

"So you talked to your dad?"

He shook his head. "He was out with Carole until late and I didn't want to bother him. But I will. Tonight," he added and in response to Blaine's significant look. "And I'll uh, tell him about us."

Kurt hadn't told his father over the weekend. He said it was because he just wanted the relationship to be just theirs for a while, but Blaine figured it was also because he was afraid of what his dad would say about him dating a guy. Blaine of course suspected that Mr. Hummel would be completely fine with it, but he hadn't pressured him to tell him. Especially since he wasn't planning on his own father any time soon.

"Kurt!"

They spun around to see Mr. Hummel walking down the hall towards them.

Kurt smiled, a little confused. "Hey dad. Um, since you're here, can I talk to you?"

His shoulders slumped as his father explained that he was taking Finn out again.

"You never thought that might be something I'd want to do with you?" he asked quietly.

"Look I-" he began before stopping. "Blaine, can you give us a sec?"

"Oh! Sorry. Yeah." He gave them some privacy, leaning against his locker down the hall and watching Kurt's face grow steadily more disheartened the more his father spoke.

Mr. Hummel finally started to walk off, and Blaine ran up to Kurt.

"Kurt-" He reached out for him.

"_No_," he spat, tearing his scarf off from around his neck. He threw it at Blaine and he caught it before it fluttered to the ground. Kurt continued, tears shining in his eyes. "This was a stupid idea. Who gets anywhere in life by being themself? He didn't like me when I was gay. He didn't like me when I was straight. I'm never going to be the son he wants."

He spun on his heel, marching off down the hall.

"Where are you going?" he called helplessly.

"The auditorium."

Blaine turned around to look for Mr. Hummel, only to find him standing around the corner.

"What is going on with my kid?" he asked.

"You need to talk to him," Blaine pleaded.

"Okay, calm down, kiddo. Where's he going?" he asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He held out Kurt's scarf. "He's in the auditorium."

He confusedly took the scarf, but thanked him and headed in the right direction.

* * *

Blaine fretfully sat through the first ten minutes of his math class, until he got a text from Kurt.

_He wants you to come family dinner on Friday._

His heart swelled.

**In case it wasn't obvious, the song used was As Long as You're Mine from the Wicked Soundtrack.**


	14. Theatricality

**Hey, I skipped Dream On, so here's Theatricality, and it's the longest chapter ever yayyy.**

The next week, glee club was in jeopardy of being cancelled by one of Schue's high school rivals, proof that high school never really leaves you. It all turned out fine though, and at the end of the week Blaine had dinner at the Hummel house, along with Carole and Finn, which made it slightly more awkward than he'd hoped for. But Carole and Burt were really nice (Mr. Hummel finally wrangled him into calling him his first name, which still made Blaine really nervous), and that's what really mattered.

After dinner, they went down to Kurt's room, leaving the door open, as per Burt's instructions.

"Sorry," Kurt said, blushing bright red. He sat down at his vanity, rearranging his face creams. "It's not like we'll even have a choice for privacy very much longer."

"Huh?"

Kurt spun around in his seat to face him, chewing on his lip. "My dad invited Carole and Finn to move in with us."

"Oh, wow that's great. Wait- where is Finn supposed to sleep?" he asked, confused. He knew Kurt's house only had two bedrooms.

He sighed. "We'll be sharing my room until the attic's renovated."

"Is that _legal_?" he replied incredulously.

"It won't be that bad. Just a little crowded, I guess. And probably smellier," he grimaced. "But at least I'll get to finally redecorate," he smiled, perking up. "Finn's skin tone does not work with these walls."

"Well, that's an upside I guess," he said, still really displeased with the idea. "What did Finn have to say about this?"

"We're telling him tomorrow. Throwing him a bit of a welcome party," he replied, wringing his hands.

"Are you nervous?" Blaine asked. He himself was anxious enough just hearing the news that his boyfriend would be living with one of his former tormentors.

"I dunno. I'm sure it'll be fine. If he starts leaving his clothes all over the place, I'll just start hiding his stuff until he gets the hint," he shrugged.

Blaine realized they were troubled about the move for very different reasons. He decided to keep his concerns to himself, though. Perhaps Finn wouldn't mind living with Kurt too much.

Maybe.

* * *

"So how'd Finn take the news?" Blaine asked Kurt as they walked into glee club on Monday.

"He did not seem as enthused about my design plans as I thought he should be," he replied, obviously displeased. "Whatever, I'm sure he'll change his mind once I've redecorated. I'm thinking about a Moroccan theme. What do you think?"

They sat down, dragging their chairs closer to each other. Kurt smiled as Blaine put his arm around the back of his chair. He loved being able to do these types of things now. They were still nowhere as publicly affectionate as Rachel and Jesse, who seemed to be melting closer into each other by the day, but just being able to _touch_ each other in glee club was a blessing, unlike in the rest of the school where they were wary about even looking at each other too long. They couldn't help but take advantage of the safe space.

"Moroccan sounds good," he said with a tentative nod.

Kurt raised an eyebrow. "You also don't sound as enthusiastic as you should be. Do you have other suggestions? I know you won't be living there, but you're always over, and I trust your judgement a lot more than Finn's."

"I'd hope so," he laughed. "I'm sure you'll come up with something fantastic, Kurt."

"Well obviously," he said with a roll of his eyes. "But I still want your input."

Kurt squeezed his hand, just as Rachel marched in with less than auspicious news about Vocal Adrenaline.

"Oh god. They're doing Gaga," Kurt said ominously once all the clues about the rival glee club's purchases were revealed.

They all rambled on about how great Lady Gaga was, and how there was no possible way that that they'd be able to defeat Vocal Adrenaline now.

"Just because they're being theatrical doesn't mean we're automatically beat," Blaine said, trying to be optimistic. "It just means we're going to have to work hard, too."

And then Schue announced they'd be doing Gaga that week and Blaine rolled his eyes.

"Copying exactly what they're doing wasn't exactly what I had in mind," he muttered to Kurt.

"Whatever, it's Gaga!" he clapped happily.

"True," he agreed, smiling. "What are you gonna wear?"

"Oh, so many possibilities, I am quite overwhelmed," he sighed, flopping his head onto his shoulder. "I'm skipping English to plan this out. We'll have to go fabric shopping tonight."

* * *

Two days later, Blaine was in his room making sure that his costume still fit right after Kurt's alterations the night before. He honestly didn't know where the boy found the time to make both of their costumes while still designing his new room. All Blaine knew was that one of these days, Kurt was definitely going to cave and start drinking coffee, because he constantly had more projects happening than any one person could handle without caffeine.

He kind of loved his costume. It was based off of Gaga's bodysuit in the 'Paparazzi' video, the yellow one with what looked like Mickey Mouse heads all over it. Luckily, Kurt had designed it as more of a coverall, though it was still quite fitted, with a wide belt cinched around his waist. The huge circular sunglasses pulled the whole look together, and he was just positioning them properly on his face when there was a knock at his door.

Blaine thought his father had already left for work, so he jumped in shock and watched with a quiet sense of foreboding as his dad leaned into his room.

"Have you seen my phone-?" His question ended abruptly as he took in Blaine's outfit. "Please tell me those are some sort of pajamas that nobody will ever see you in," he said quietly.

He fidgeted with his glasses, missing his bowtie. "It's my costume for the Lady Gaga performance in glee."

"And what are you doing wearing it right now?" he asked, brows so high his forehead was just three deep, wrinkled lines.

"We're wearing them to school," he said. "It's Theatricality week, and Kurt worked really hard making this so I'd appreciate it if you didn't-"

"What the _hell _do you think people are going to do to you when they see you walking around in that?" he hissed, his grip on the doorknob turning his knuckles white.

Blaine's eyes fell to the floor, his jaw tightening. "I dunno, dad. Say that my ass looks great?"

His face turned the shade of a rotten tomato. "You are not leaving this house until you change into appropriate attire."

"Dad, you can't _do_ that-" he argued.

"Yes I can. You can't wear that in public and assume you're not going to get the very same treatment as after that dance!" he thundered.

Blaine recoiled. "That's- that's not gonna happen-"

"Really? You think you can get thrown into dumpsters and have icy drinks thrown at you on a normal day, and then wear a woman's outlandish outfit without a problem?" he demanded indignantly.

"How do you know about that?" he asked, mouth dry. He'd mentioned a few times that he'd gotten pushed around, but he'd never gone into very much detail because all his father had said in return was to toughen up.

"You think I didn't call the school after that Rachel girl came over and started talking about everybody in your stupid club getting constantly harassed? I talked to your principal, he said you'd been meeting with him on a weekly basis to complain but there was nothing he could do about it. He literally has no power over the little shits pounding you unless a staff member reports it." He shook his head bitterly and Blaine gaped. He had no idea that his father had ever tried to help him.

"I- I thought you wanted me to toughen up?" he said in a dazed voice.

"Yeah but I don't want you in the fucking hospital again!" he cried, throwing his arms out. "So take the damn costume off or I will lock this door and you will be missing school today."

"Oh… kay," he agreed in disbelief.

"See that you do," he said tightly before closing the door behind him.

He stood in his room for a moment, unmoving as his mind raced with new information.

His father… cared about his well-being? It was such a foreign concept to Blaine, and it didn't make any sense. His dad hated who he was, why would he care if he was hurt?

He got dressed in a red cardigan and a bowtie, mulling over the conflicting information as he carefully folded his costume and packed it away in his bag. He'd just put it on before the performance. It was no big deal, really. In the back of his mind he'd been kind of concerned about wearing it where the jocks could see anyway.

Once he was ready he headed down the stairs to find his father waiting by the front door.

"What? I changed," he said, waving down at himself for emphasis.

"Is it in your bag?" he asked, nodding to the satchel at Blaine's hip.

Blaine considered lying, but he knew his dad would just demand to search through it if he did. "I still need it for the performance."

His father shook his head and held out his hand. "No, give it to me."

"Dad, nobody in glee club is gonna care what I wear! Kurt's wearing a costume too."

His face twitched. "And that's his problem. But I am not letting you wear that."

"It's Theatricality week, the costumes are supposed to be over the top," he explained, trying not to roll his eyes in frustration. "Trust me, I'd look much stupider trying to perform Lady Gaga in a cardigan and a bowtie."

"Be that as it may-"

"Dad, I'm gonna be late for school." And just as he said that, he felt a buzzing in his pocket, a text from Kurt telling him he'd arrived in his driveway to pick him up for school.

"Then you better give me that costume," he said in a tone that left little room for argument.

"Kurt is going to be disappointed enough that I'm not wearing it to school. I'm not going to tell him that I can't perform because my dad stole my outfit," he shot back.

"Is he why you're acting this way?" he demanded, looking more outraged than he had all morning. "Is it because of him?"

"Acting in _what_ way?" he asked incredulously. "I just want my costume so I can properly perform on stage! And I've always liked performing, so don't pin this on Kurt. Who, by the way, is waiting for me in the driveway. So if you could please stop blocking my path?"

"I don't want you wearing that," he insisted coldly. "It'll be dangerous-"

"It's just clothing, dad. I'm not gonna be blowing Kurt in the hallway."

This time his face turned a surprising shade of white.

"Oh, yeah. We're dating now. But don't worry, if we so much as held hands at school, we'd get thrown into dumpsters. So we keep a respectable five foot distance in public."

His statement left his father so stunned that he was able to shove past him out the door.

All Blaine's anger dissipated once his eyes landed on Kurt. "Oh my god, you look fantastic," he said, smile sweeping across his face.

"Thanks," he said, patting his giant white wig. "And you look dapper as always, but where's your costume? Did the alterations from last night screw something up?"

"No." He thumped his head against the headrest and sighed. He explained what had transpired as Kurt drove them to school, adding his confusion about his father actually giving a shit about his well-being for once.

"Well, he's your dad. So I guess it makes sense that he wants you safe, right?" Kurt said uncertainly as he pulled into the school parking lot.

"He's been trying to push me back into the closet for months," Blaine replied indignantly. "He obviously doesn't care about me."

"Well… _technically_ it's safer in the closet. Maybe he was coming from a well-intentioned but poorly-executed place?" Kurt offered, shrugging his silver shoulders.

Kurt pulled into a parking space and Blaine crossed his arms over his chest, muttering, "All he's accomplished is making me feel like shit."

He reached across the console to rub his back comfortingly. "I think you need to talk to him, Blaine."

"I've _tried_. _He's_ tried. Trying to talk makes us both too upset to deal with other," he said, staring at his knees. "I just wish he'd listen to me."

"You could try singing it to him," Kurt suggested dryly.

Blaine rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay. I don't wanna think about him right know." He forced a smile onto his face and looked at Kurt. "We have an exciting day in glee planned, let's focus on that."

He smiled encouragingly before pulling away. "Just let me put on my shoes. I don't know how people drive with heels on."

* * *

On the way to glee with Tina, who was expressing how much she loved her new look, the three of them got shoved into lockers by Karofsky and Azimio. Kurt's shoulder pad crinkled and one of Tina's bubbles were crushed, so Blaine wasn't surprised to hear Kurt's indignant shout of, "Excuse me, were you dropped on your heads?"

The footballers sauntered back to them menacingly.

"Wh- What the hell do you think gives you the right to push us around?" Kurt asked, standing tall despite the trepidation in his eyes.

Azimio scoffed. "Look at you. You're walking around, looking like that, and you don't expect people to get angry?"

"There's nothing wrong with what we're doing," Blaine snarled, hating the fact that his father had been right.

Karofsky looked him up and down, eyes stopping on the wrong places of his jumpsuit and making Blaine want to huddle closer to Kurt. "Should have known you were one of the queers," he muttered derisively.

"The term 'queer' is actually a generally accepted blanket term for any LGBQTT-" Blaine began without really thinking.

Karofsky shoved him up against the lockers. "Does it look like I want a lesson in gayness?" he growled.

"I dunno, but you're standing _awfully_ close to me for a straight guy," he spat back. Karofsky jumped back like he was on fire, and Blaine tucked that comeback away to remember for later.

"You wish, homo," he said venomously.

"I _wish_ you'd leave us alone for wearing clothes you don't like," he retorted.

"Honestly, we're just expressing ourselves," Kurt put in, eyes flicking to Blaine momentarily to survey for injuries. "It's just like when you wear your football jerseys to school."

"Well the next time you wanna express yourselves with that fucking weirdo Gaga's sparkly-ass, papier-mâché clothes, don't be surprised if my _fist_," Azimio pounded his fist against the lockers, rattling them loudly and causing all three of them to jump, "feels like expressing itself on your chin."

They started to walk away and Kurt couldn't resist one last dig. "Yeah, wouldn't wanna miss your appointment at _Super Cuts_!"

Which provoked Karofsky's equally brilliant response of, "You know what, Fancy? At Super Cuts you don't need an appointment. They _love_ walk-ins."

And he high fived his friend like he'd just said something actually clever.

* * *

The girls, plus Blaine and Kurt, performed 'Bad Romance' in the auditorium. Their costumes were so elaborate that Blaine knew it was hard for some of the girls to move, and Kurt was having trouble dancing in his shoes, but it was incredibly fun and definitely worth any difficulties.

Afterwards, the rest of the guys performed their Kiss routine, which was really entertaining to watch, but Blaine still liked theirs better.

"_So_ glad we did Gaga instead of Kiss," Blaine whispered to Kurt halfway through their performance.

Kurt nodded. "Had you been thinking of joining them instead?" he asked curiously.

"Not really, but Mike offered," he replied. "Did Finn not ask you?"

He shook his head.

"Oh. Probably because you were so excited about Gaga," he reasoned.

Kurt hummed noncommittally.

* * *

After school, Blaine went to Kurt's to help him with various projects. They'd just put away fabric samples for the room so Kurt could start re-bedazzling his shoes when Finn lumbered down the stairs, still in his stage makeup.

Finn sat down at the vanity after giving them an awkward nod and starting trying to remove the paint from his face.

"If you could try to convince Azimio and Karofsky to not ruin our Gaga costumes while they harass us, that would be great," Kurt said to him dryly.

"Or just not harass us at all," Blaine muttered, trying to smooth down Kurt's wig in his lap.

Finn paused. "Are you serious? Don't you get how difficult it is for them?"

"Is it really that hard for them _not_ to shove us into lockers?" Blaine asked. "It's called overcoming their base instincts."

"Is it any wonder I call them Neanderthals?" Kurt rolled his eyes.

"What do you expect from them? This is Ohio. Not New York, or San Francisco or any other state that doesn't deep fry their vegetables."

"What the hell has that got to do with anything?"

"It's not _my_ fault people are assholes, Finn," Kurt spat.

He spun around in his seat. "It's your fault for making such a spectacle of yourself all the time," he accused. "Why can't you just be more like Blaine?"

"I take offense to whatever the hell that's supposed to mean," Blaine said immediately.

"I mean, you don't flaunt who you are in everyone's faces," Finn said. "It's a compliment."

Blaine bit the inside of his cheek. "That is you saying that I look straight, Finn," he gritted out. "But the fact is, I am gay and just because I don't dress exactly like Kurt does not make me any _straighter_ than him, nor does it make him any _gayer_ than me. Don't try to pass off your homophobic bullshit as a compliment!"

He held up his hands like he was being threatened. "I don't know why you're getting so mad, dude."

"You're saying you want me to be straight," Kurt said in a shrill tone. "Guess what, I tried that two weeks ago. It didn't work."

"Quit attacking me. You're putting words in my mouth."

"No, we're just interpreting them the way you mean but are too afraid to actually say," Kurt said.

"That's not- I don't- ugh," he sighed. "I'm gonna go finish this in the laundry room," he gestured to his face.

"You're gonna need a moist towelette to get that off," Kurt called as he left.

Blaine shook his head. "If you ever feel the need to get away from _that_ particular Neanderthal, you are of course always welcome at my house," Blaine said, trying to lean against him, but Kurt's huge shoulder pads made it difficult.

"Thanks," he sighed. He stroked his fingers along the base of Blaine's neck, where his hair had started to come free from the gel.

"Actually, I told my dad we were dating this morning, so maybe not," he said on second thought.

"Well he didn't say anything negative," Kurt replied optimistically.

"He didn't say anything at all," he countered.

"You ran out of the house to me. Who knows what he would have said?"

"I guess I'll find out when I get home," he sighed unhappily.

Kurt kissed his temple. "I'm going to put on some more cuddle-conducive clothes, and then we can go upstairs and watch a movie, okay?"

Blaine smiled, turning to kiss him softly on the mouth. "I don't know what I'd do without you sometimes," he murmured against his lips.

His smile curved against Blaine's mouth. "The feeling is absolutely mutual."

* * *

Blaine didn't get home until around nine, dreading the conversation he would likely have with his father. He tiptoed through the front door, hoping his entrance would go unnoticed in the big house.

Unfortunately, his dad was just in the kitchen and came out to meet him immediately.

"How was your day?" he asked cautiously.

"Fine," Blaine replied.

"Did anything happen?" he said meaningfully.

Blaine wanted to say 'no' just to prove him wrong, but instead he huffed out, "Some guys shoved us into lockers. It was no big deal."

He nodded. "And that's the end of the costume?"

Blaine bit his lip. "We're supposed to wear them tomorrow, too."

"Blaine-" he sighed.

"Dad, why did you say that it was okay for me to be gay when I came out to you, and then after I was gay-bashed at the dance you took it back?" he interrupted. The question had not so much been itching at the back of his mind, but gnawing at his insides whenever he and his father would speak.

His father blinked at him, before bowing his head. "Can we talk in the living room?"

"If you want."

They sat down next to each other on the couch, and Blaine stared at his dad expectantly.

He wiped a hand over his face and looked at him. "Blaine, you're my son and I love you. Please know that. When you told me you were gay, I was surprised. I-I thought it was my fault, after forcing you to all those dance and piano lessons, trying to make you a proper gentleman instead of whatever the hell Cooper became."

"I loved those dance lessons. I loved playing piano," Blaine interrupted. "And that didn't _make_ me gay, dad. That's not how it works, I was born this way."

"That's something I'm still struggling to understand-"

"It's not that hard of a concept," he said, trying not to snap at him.

A broad hand covered his, silencing him. "I know. I'm working on it, okay?" His eyes held Blaine's, incredibly intent and pleading for him to listen. Blaine nodded. "So you came out, and I dealt with it. It was okay. It's not like you were dating anybody, so it was pretty much a non-issue. And then you went to that godforsaken dance with the other gay kid."

"His name is Todd. And you didn't want me to go," Blaine remembered.

"But you insisted that it would be okay. I'd been up waiting for you to come back and then I got a call in the middle of the night from the hospital… You looked so tiny in that bed, Blaine," he said in a small voice. He was facing the coffee table, eyes unfocused as if he could still see him, bruised and battered in the hospital. "I'd just lost your mother to that asshole dentist two months before. I couldn't stand facing the possibility of losing you too, in a much more permanent way. I was _so_ worried. And then I found out those shits beat you up because you were _gay_. It was all my fault."

"That's not how it wor-"

"I know. I'm sorry. But I couldn't help but think how much safer you'd be if you were straight. You'd have gone with a girl, and nobody would have beaten you up and you wouldn't be lying in that bed, struggling to breathe with a cracked rib and a broken wrist and twelve stiches," he said. He swallowed loudly and continued, "I thought I could… convince you to be straight if I just dropped enough hints."

"That's stupid," Blaine said past the lump in his throat. "And it made me feel like crap."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, wrapping an arm around him. "I was so scared of what the world would do to you. You were such a happy little kid."

"I'm still happy," Blaine muttered. "I'm gay and I'm happy at the same time. That's possible, you know."

"Is it because of Kurt?" he asked after a moment.

"What?"

"Does Kurt make you happy?"

"Yeah, dad," he said, eyes watering. "He makes me really happy. He's my best friend, and now we're more and I've honestly never been happier about anything in my life. So I fu- really hate how much you seem to hate him."

"I don't… hate him. I just- I could see you falling more and more in love with him each time you two spent time together and well, that was counteractive to my plan of making you straight, so…" He seemed embarrassed, but Blaine was blushing really hard too.

"What- what do you mean you could _see_ it?" he asked.

His father chuckled, shaking him by the shoulders. "You love like nobody I've ever seen, Blaine. It's plain on your face and you don't even try to hide it. I don't know if that'll fade with age as you eventually grow more cynical, and I kind of hope it does because you're gonna get hurt so easily, but I kind of hope it doesn't. Because the world needs people like you."

Blaine's tears fell silently into his dad's dress shirt. "So you're still gonna let Kurt in the house?" he mumbled.

"Yes." He rubbed his arm comfortingly. "And I'm going to be a lot more accepting of you. And Kurt. And you and Kurt together. You deserve to be happy, and I can't stand the thought of me being one of the reasons preventing that. I should have realized that much sooner. I'm sorry."

"Thank you," he said, hugging him tightly.

He kissed the top of his head, then after a second asked, "Why did you start wearing so much gel?"

"They were putting gum in my hair," he muttered reluctantly.

His father sighed, pulling him closer to him. "I am so sorry I transferred you to that school, Blaine."

"It's okay," he mumbled into his shoulder. "I'm not."

* * *

Blaine had been excited to tell Kurt about his conversation with his father the next day, but his boyfriend was nowhere to be found.

He texted Kurt at lunch, when he found out that none of the other glee clubbers knew where he was either.

**To Kurt:** Where are you?

**To Blaine:** At home.

**To Kurt:** Are you sick?

**To Blaine:** No.

Then Kurt called him.

"I'm finishing up redecorating my room," he said in greeting.

"Why?"

"To surprise Finn."

"I thought we were mad at Finn."

"Blaine, last night he tried to use a fork to get a pizza pocket out of the toaster."

"So?"

"So, the boy has all the brains of a gold fish. I think that sometimes he honestly doesn't know what he's saying. So I'm finishing the room to make up for our fight."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Blaine pointed out after a pause.

"Yeah, well. We're going to be sharing the same room for the indefinite future. I'd like to start it off on the right foot."

"If you say so," he sighed.

"I do."

"Okay. Hey, I have news about my dad."

"Did you guys talk?" he asked intently.

"Yeah. I'll skip my last few classes and head to your house to tell you about it and help you finish up the room."

* * *

"Let's make out on Finn's bed," Blaine said. He'd told Kurt all about his dad as soon as he got there, leaving out the specifics of his dad seeing Blaine's love for Kurt on his face, because they hadn't even said that to each other yet, so he wasn't going to mention it breezily while talking about his dad. He did love him, he knew he did, he just had no idea when to say it because they'd only been going out like a month. "He deserves it."

Kurt raised an eyebrow at him over his shoulder as he adjusted a piece of drapery for the hundredth time. They'd finished decorating and moving furniture about fifteen minutes ago, and Finn was due to be back from school any minute now. "We are not _making out_ for the first time in Finn's bed."

Blaine shrugged. "Okay. Let's make out in your bed," he grinned cheekily. "_You_ deserve it."

"You're ridiculous." He rolled his eyes, getting off the stool he'd been perched on. "Come here."

He happily obeyed and Kurt draped his arms around his neck, tugging him close. "Thank you for helping me," he said, their noses brushing.

"You are most welcome. I'm still in awe that you managed to do all this in less than a week. The place looks great."

"What can I say? I'm amazing," he said airily.

"And modest," he muttered, ducking down to press his lips against his jaw. He loved kissing Kurt. He loved Kurt kissing him. He loved that they were slowly figuring out what the other liked, in their few moments alone.

"_Oh_," Kurt sighed, tilting his head to the side to grant Blaine more access. "Modesty is for people who aren't as incredible as I am."

He trailed his lips up to his ear, smirking and about to reply when they heard the clomp of footsteps coming down the stairs. They hastily pulled apart, standing next to each other and separated save for their clasped hands.

"Finn!" Kurt welcomed him as he reached them. "Welcome! As you can see, Blaine and I finished decorating! I hope you like it; we worked all day to finish. Consider it a peace offering. I'd really like for us to get along… since we're going to be living together and that will be helpful."

Finn was looking around the basement with a dazed look on his face. It wasn't really very different from how he usually looked, so Blaine couldn't figure out if he liked any of it or not.

"Are- are you serious? I can't live here. I'm a dude," he finally said.

Well that cleared that right up.

Kurt's face fell, his grip tightening on Blaine's hand.

"Yes, and so am I," he replied stiffly. "I specifically tried to design a space that both of us would be comfortable in."

"How did you think I would be comfortable here?" he asked, throwing his arms around incredulously.

"Well there is surplus of pillows," Blaine pointed out, trying not to get too angry at how much he was upsetting Kurt.

"What, are you just gonna be here all the time now?" Finn demanded, jabbing a finger at Blaine. "Is this supposed to be your little love nest? It looks like a harem!"

Kurt sighed, setting his jaw. "A harem isn't a place, it's a group of women-"

"I don't care! I can't live here. There are too many… curtain things." He waved at the draperies hanging around the room. "How do I know you two won't be going at it behind them when I'm trying to play video games?"

"Because that would be disgusting?" Blaine said through his teeth.

"Yeah, it would be," he agreed.

"If you want to redecorate, just say so!" Kurt shouted. "Don't attack my relationship just because you can't go one day without being an asshole."

"Fine. I want to redecorate," he said. His voice rose as he added, "And the first thing that needs to go is that faggy lamp-" Blaine stumbled back as if hit, while Kurt froze in place "-and this faggy blanket thing-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Before Blaine registered what he was doing, he'd stepped forward and punched Finn straight in the nose.

He reeled back, clutching his face, just as Burt pounded down the stairs.

"M- Mr. Hummel, I-" he stuttered, fear clogging in his chest.

"'S okay, kid. I heard what he said," he interrupted, glowering at Finn.

Blaine walked back over to Kurt, who took his hand and inspected it for signs of bruising instead of watching his father ream Finn out for talking to them that way.

It was a beautiful speech, really. It was everything Blaine could never articulate properly, and spoken with such passion that he got a bit teared up. He was nothing compared to Kurt though, whose jaw was shaking with the effort of keeping his tears at bay.

Blaine put an arm around his waist and felt him tremble against his side as Kurt rested his forehead on his shoulder.

"I can't have you stay here, Finn," Burt finally decided. "I love your mom, and this may ruin things with her. But my family comes first. That is my son. And him and Blaine are happy together, but they aren't safe together out there in the world. But they are under my roof. And I need to keep it that way."

Finn just stared at him before stumbling away, past Blaine holding Kurt in his arms and up the stairs, not apologizing- he _never_ apologized for the horrendous things he did.

"The place looks great," Burt said gruffly. He came over to them and put a hand on Kurt's shoulder and Kurt covered it with one of his own. Burt nodded once at Blaine. "Your hand okay, kid?"

"Yes sir," he said quietly.

"Okay I- I gotta call Carole," he sighed hugely.

He headed up the stairs and Kurt sunk onto the couch, taking Blaine with him.

They were silent for a few minutes, Kurt's face hidden in Blaine's shoulder, trying to quell his tears. Blaine closed his eyes and stroked his back before Kurt mumbled, "I'm getting taller than you."

"What?" he asked, lips brushing the shelf of Kurt's ear.

"I'm taller than you now," he said, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "The first time we hugged we were the same height, and now I have to lean down to put my head on your shoulder. It was hurting my neck."

Blaine chuckled. "I mentioned that months ago."

He tucked his legs beneath himself, cuddling further into Blaine. "Eat more vegetables," he pouted.

* * *

The next day Finn seemed to make a half-assed attempt at apologizing, but Kurt brushed him off angrily while Blaine glared at him from over Kurt's shoulder. He took a sick sort of satisfaction from the angry bruising around his nose.

And then Puck came in and sang to Quinn about the baby they were giving up and it was just about the most adorable thing Blaine had ever seen and it really endeared him to Puck as a person.

Friday, the last day of Theatricality week, Blaine and Kurt were on their way to glee club. After talking to his dad a little more and explaining how much work Kurt had put into the costume and how it would be a sign of solidarity within the club if he wore the costume, he'd given Blaine his blessing to wear it to school again.

He would have done it anyway, but Blaine really appreciated how much his father was beginning to listen to him.

"I must say, while I have thoroughly enjoyed channeling Gaga, I am _not_ going to miss this freaking wig," Kurt was saying as they rounded a corner.

"Yeah. Neither am I." Karofsky and Azimio stood with their arms crossed over their chests, moving forward in unison until Kurt and Blaine were forced against the windowsill behind them.

"Looks like you didn't listen to our warning," Azimio said, smacking his fist into his palm in a stereotypically threatening way.

"Now we _know_ you wanna get a beat down," Karofsky said.

"What are you hoping to accomplish?" Blaine demanded, grip tightening on Kurt's wrist as the jocks crowded closer.

"Hoping to rattle your brains around a bit to keep you from acting so gay."

"It's not an _act_. It's who we are," Kurt said, jaw clenched. He moved so he was half-blocking Blaine from the other's view. "And you can hit me all you want, but I am never going to change. I'm proud to be special. It's the best thing about me. So hit me."

"No," Blaine growled, pulling out from behind him.

The jocks laughed.

"This why you keep the little bitch around?" Karofsky asked Kurt. "Like a dog, he fights your battles before you bend him over?"

"You seem terribly interested in our private business, Karofsky," Blaine spat. "There a reason for that?"

The look on his face morphed into one of pure rage and he pulled back a meaty fist, and Blaine could have moved away easily, but his eyes caught sight of Finn over Karofsky's shoulder and he was shocked into stillness.

"Hey!" Finn called, causing Karofsky to falter, his fist barely brushing Blaine's face as both he and Azimio turned around to gape at Finn.

"Well look who hopped on the fairy train," Azimio said.

Finn looked vaguely like a lobster, in a long, red, rubbery dress. He thanked Kurt for teaching him that he still had a lot to learn. That still wasn't an apology, but he was at least admitting that he was wrong.

"And I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you guys," he said. He put his hands on his hips and tried to look intimidating while wearing a shower curtain.

Azimio scoffed. "I think we can take a couple of queers and a guy in a dress."

The rest of the glee club, clad in their Theatricality outfits, appeared behind Finn.

"Yeah, and what about all of us?" Santana asked, jutting her chin out defiantly. She caught Blaine's eye and winked.

Azimio and Karofsky backed off, realizing they were beat. They called them all freaks, but they did leave, and Blaine sunk into Kurt's side with relief.

"I'm sick of everyone calling us freaks," Rachel sighed in her new geometric dress, Brittany wearing giant lobster glasses on one side of her, and Quinn with four-inch long eyelashes on the other.

Blaine bit his lip, not wanting to say it but thankfully Mercedes was thinking it too.

"Well look at us," she snorted. "We _are_ freaks."

They all burst out in laughter and Finn added, "But we're all freaks together. And we shouldn't have to hide it."

"So nice of you to finally realize," Blaine mumbled.

Kurt squeezed his hand and gave him placating smile, before nodding at Finn in gratitude.

A condescending slow clap came from behind the group, and Schuester announced that it looked like they finally figured out the lesson of the week.

"Are you kidding me?" Blaine exclaimed. "We almost got the shit kicked out of us and then you stroll up-"

Kurt slid his hand down Blaine's arm to squeeze his hand.

He sighed and forced himself to let it go. "Next stop, Regionals."


	15. Funk

The week started off on a terribly sour note. Jesse St James transferred back to Carmel High, which meant New Directions lost an incredible voice. The rival show choir also took over their auditorium and showed off, and to top it all off, they tee-peed the choir room.

Rachel's heart was broken, and the rest of the club was in similarly low spirits.

Especially Schue apparently, because when Sue came to gloat about how the choir room would turn into her own personal trophy room after they lost at Regionals, he threw one of her trophies into a wall where it shattered into a million tiny pieces.

"Just like my heart," Rachel whimpered, staring at the glittery shards scattered across the floor.

"Yet another thing we have to clean up," Blaine sighed.

* * *

Schuester managed to make a lesson plan revolve around his personal crumbling love life, asking the club to think about their regrets, and then telling them that they had to get out of their funks caused by Vocal Adrenaline.

By getting back at them.

What an upstanding moral citizen to mould young minds.

"Isn't the best revenge living well?" Blaine mused.

"No. Let's steal their school statue," Schue said.

Kurt shot that ludicrous idea down, explaining the immense size and weight of it.

"Plus, it's probably bolted to the ground in some way," Blaine added, wondering how their choir teacher had ever been given any sort of authority.

Blaine tilted his head slightly towards Kurt; his boyfriend was leaning his elbow on the back of his chair, not having moved from when they'd been whispering together before the meeting started.

"Shouldn't we be planning out what songs to sing at Regionals?" he asked him. "So that we, you know, stand a chance against them?"

"Blaine, we still have cheerleading Nationals this weekend. One step at a time."

He rolled his eyes.

* * *

Speaking of Nationals, in an immature attempt to get back at Coach Sylvester, Schue did _something_ stupid to her; Blaine wasn't sure of the details, and he didn't really want to be.

Whatever it was he did, it seemed to have put Sue into a funk of her own. She hadn't gotten out of bed in days, and she refused to hold cheer practices, leaving many of the Cheerios mentally and emotionally unstable.

Case in point, Brittany was trying to climb into his lap at lunch.

She managed to straddle his thighs despite his protests, and she booped his nose, saying, "You're a little cupcake, yes you are."

"Brittany, if you would kindly get off my boyfriend," Kurt requested dryly.

She took that as an invitation to crawl into _his_ lap.

"What? No, _Brittany_-"

"You two are ruining my perfect record, you know," she pouted, hands flat on Kurt's chest. Blaine was slightly, ridiculously jealous.

"What in the name of insanity are you talking about?" Kurt asked.

"You're like the only two guys in school I haven't made out with. Let's kiss," she said suddenly, leaning in.

"Oh god no," he groaned, turning his head to glare at Blaine while she slobbered on his cheek.

"What a waste," Puck sighed from across the table.

Blaine caught sight of Santana approaching them, hair a mess and a box of tissues grasped in her claws. "Santana! Can you get Brittany off of Kurt please?"

"Britt," she sighed, slumping into a chair and laying her head in her arms.

She wrenched her mouth away from Kurt, rushing over to her friend. "Santana! Can we make out?"

Blaine turned to Kurt and wiped Brittany's saliva from his cheek. "We have to do something," he muttered.

"Yeah, like a disinfecting shower? She was _licking _me, Blaine. Like a _cat_." He sounded completely horrified.

Blaine rubbed his cheek soothingly with his thumb, wishing he could kiss him. He resolved to do so later, in private.

"We have to help them and the rest of the Cheerios. They're all going to melt into a pile of tears and high-ponies if nobody does anything."

Kurt crossed his arms. "Coach Sylvester just needs to get out of whatever Schuester-induced funk she's in and get the hell back to school. Like, this is her _job-_ she can't just not come in because she's sad."

"Maybe we should go to talk to her," Blaine suggested.

"At her dragon cave?" he asked incredulously. "Are you insane?"

"Kurt, look at them," he nodded to where Brittany had slid to the floor and was mindlessly counting ceilings tiles, while Santana was crouched on a chair, eating French fries.

"Santana doesn't eat carbs," Kurt muttered, eyes widening.

She threw a half-eaten fry at him and said through a mouth full of chewed food, "Shut up, Prissy Pants. I'm mourning!"

Kurt flicked the fry off of his plate, grimacing, before turning back to Blaine with a determined glint in his eyes. "We'll go after school. And we'll bring them," he nodded at the inconsolable cheerleaders. "Even Coach Sylvester will have to feel _some_ sympathy."

* * *

"Where are we?" Brittany asked for the tenth time.

"Coach Sylvester's house," Blaine replied from beside Kurt on the front steps.

"Why?" she asked predictably.

"Because she's in a bad mood and we need to cheer her up."

"Only winning cheers her up. And if people try to talk to her when she's in a bad mood, she eats their faces."

"It's true. I've seen it," Santana said gravely.

Kurt and Blaine exchanged worried looks before the door opened to reveal a short maid.

"Yes?" she said, looking over the four of them with confusion.

"Hi," Blaine said brightly. "I'm Blaine, this is Kurt, Brittany and Santana. We're on the Cheerios and we were wondering if we could speak to Coach Sylvester to try and convince her to come back to school."

"Why?" she asked.

"… We miss her?" Kurt said after a brief silence.

"Well, Brittany and Santana certainly do, just look at them." Blaine stepped aside to show off the dishevelled girls.

"Tell her not to eat our faces," Brittany whimpered.

The maid frowned. "I have never seen Ms. Sylvester like this. She hasn't left her room in days, and she is not drinking her protein shakes. I don't know if you'll be able to help, but there will certainly be no face eating today. Please come in, I will go ask if she's accepting visitors."

They stepped into the foyer, and Blaine's eyes grew wide at the sight of the trophies decorating the entirety of the house.

"Jesus, she _really_ likes winning," Kurt muttered.

The maid rejoined them, nodding. "Go on in."

"Thank you," Blaine smiled before leading his friends down the short hallway stacked with bright gold trophies. He popped his head in first, since it was his idea to visit her, and if she was going to breathe fire, it should be at him. "Hi, Coach."

She was lying on her bed, clutching a mammoth trophy to her chest, and as the teenagers crowded into her room, she narrowed her eyes at them.

"What the hell are you doing here? I had this vision of the whole squad joining that despicable glee club and dancing for joy when I stopped coming in."

"Coach, we need you at school," Santana said, posture straightening under Sue's intense gaze.

"For what?" she asked suspiciously.

"For Nationals!" Kurt cried.

Santana spoke right over him. "Half the girls have forgotten how to tie their ponytails right from how upset they are about not going to Nationals. You gotta come back."

"We need you," Blaine said.

Kurt rolled his eyes, checking his nails. Blaine elbowed him in the side with a significant look. "Yeah, Coach Sylvester. Please come back," Kurt sighed dispassionately. Then he said added with actual excitement. "I was really looking forward to singing that fourteen minute long Celine Dion and Katy Perry medley with Blaine."

He nodded eagerly.

Brittany crawled onto the bed and took one of Sue's hands. The cheer coach reared her head back in terror. "Coach Sylvester, you're really mean a lot, but you get the very best out of us and you taught me how to read a watch so I could get to practices on time. So you have to come back to school so we can go to Nationals because it will be fun and you'll have another trophy for your farm."

It was a simple speech, but it seemed to get through to her.

"Twinkle Toes, get me my megaphone," Coach Sylvester snapped.

Kurt and Blaine both jumped to obey, which left Santana rolling her eyes. "She means Kurt."

"How can you possibly know that?" Blaine asked in wonder.

"Emelda! Make me a shake. To go," Coach Sylvester called into her megaphone. Blaine grinned widely, forgetting his confusion. "Wipe that smirk off your face, Hobbit. And everybody get out of my house."

* * *

"And now I just keep having nightmares of all the mothers of the baby chicks coming after me for revenge," Rachel finished her tale of getting viciously egged by her ex-boyfriend.

"This is bullshit," Puck groaned angrily. He stood up and gestured to half the club. "Finn, Mike, Matt. It's time to do more than slash their tires."

Kurt stood up and Blaine gave him a look. "They're planning on _fighting_ them," he stressed.

"I haven't shown you my sai swords yet, have I?" Kurt grinned wryly, tugging him along to follow the others. "I can be vicious when I want, and I am feeling it today."

"Hey, what's going on here?" Schuester said, blocking their path out of the room.

"We're gonna go all _Braveheart_ on Vocal Adrenaline," Finn said, arms flailing wildly.

"He _really_ likes that movie, doesn't he?" Blaine muttered to Kurt as Schue argued against their plan of violence.

"Mr. Schue, Rachel is one of us, we're the only ones that get to humiliate her," Kurt insisted vehemently.

They started to walk past Schue and he shouted at them to get back to their seats, but they merely stopped, unused to him being so loud.

"Trust me, getting back at people doesn't make you feel any better," he said.

"Oh you realized this _now_, as opposed to earlier in the week when you encouraged us all to steal a three ton statue?" Blaine asked, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, we're just doing what you told us, Schue," Puck said. "And what they did this time is way worse than teepeeing our room or showing us up on stage!"

"We can't let them get away with turning Rachel into an omelette," Finn added.

"We're not." Then Schue took Rachel's phone and told Jesse and the rest of Vocal Adrenaline to come to McKinley on Friday, which Blaine thought was weird, but at least he didn't have to fight anybody.

* * *

Santana slapped Blaine's ass _hard_ when it was announced that they won Cheerleading Nationals.

His gasp of pain was drowned out by the Cheerios whooping and hollering, jumping and hugging like maniacs.

"Nice job, Twinkle Twins!" she shouted at them before Brittany jumped on her back for a celebratory piggy back ride.

Kurt grinned at him, teeth on full display. "We won! Blaine, we won!" He grabbed Blaine by the face and smacked a quick kiss on his lips. "Look, a camera!"

He rushed them both over to where Coach Sylvester was speaking to a reporter. The man shoved a microphone towards them and said, "Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson, your fourteen minute long pop medley duet guaranteed your squad a win. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

"I'd like to thank my dad for letting me come," Blaine grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet and pushing off Kurt's shoulder to wave at the camera.

"We couldn't have done it without Coach Sylvester," Kurt said.

"Brown noser," Blaine muttered with a smile.

"Okay great, get out of here," Sue muttered, pushing them out of the frame.

* * *

"Do it again," Blaine laughed backstage after 'Give Up the Funk'.

"Blaine-" Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Please," he tugged on his arm, grinning and slightly buoyant after their performance that had left Vocal Adrenaline quaking in their boots.

He pursed his lips to keep back a smile. "_We're gonna tear the roof off this mother sucker, the roof off the sucker_-"

Blaine giggled delightedly. "I still can't believe that's actually your _voice_, oh my god."

"And _I_ still can't believe you chose to wear booty shorts," he shot back with a scoff.

"You don't like them?" Blaine pouted, sticking his butt out and looking at his rear. "I think I pull these off."

"That's exactly what he wants to do," Santana scoffed as she passed by them.

"What?" He looked up at Kurt just in time to see him tear his gaze away from Blaine's ass.

"So you _do_ like them!" he accused triumphantly. His face went beet red, and Blaine rushed over to squeeze his shoulder. "Don't be embarrassed. It's a nice ass, I know."

"_Blaine_-" he said in warning.

"Don't worry, yours is better."

"Blaine!"

He kissed him on the cheek to calm him down.

"Who's ready for Regionals, bitches?" Puck shouted.

They all cheered.


	16. Journey to Regionals

Blaine and Kurt sat together on Blaine's couch, glumly contemplating the end of glee club after the melancholy meeting at Schuester's house.

"Blaine?" Kurt said expectantly.

"What?" he asked, cheek smushed against his shoulder.

"This is usually when you say something optimistic."

"I'm out of optimism," he replied miserably. "Now that Coach Sylvester is judging Regionals, she'll ruin us. You heard her at practice; she's on a war path. So we won't place and Figgins won't give us funding for next year. We won't have anywhere to sing or dance or be_ happy_ at school. Everyone will disperse back into their original social spheres and neglect to acknowledge each other in the hallway. The jocks will probably be back to slushying us by Halloween. It's a bleak, bleak world."

Kurt's grip tightened on his hand.

"Hey, what the hell?"

"Dad!" Blaine said, jumping at the unexpected presence of his father. "What? We're just sitting here."

"And being depressing as hell. What's going on?" he asked, flicking the lights on because Kurt had insisted that he wanted to mourn in the dark.

"You heard what I said. New Directions is gonna lose at Regionals because Coach Sylvester's had it out for us from the beginning. And Figgins won't fund us if we don't place."

"So we're goners," Kurt concluded quietly.

Blaine's dad sat down on the coffee table in front of them, frowning at the two of them.

"Dad, I know you hate glee club, but it's the only place we fit in at school and it's just really, really gonna suck not having it next year," Blaine sighed, still slumped against Kurt's side.

"Well what are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, sulking in the dark isn't going to bring your club back. Do you even have songs picked out? Blaine, Kurt- the only way you are definitely going to lose is by _not trying_. As long as you do your best, you'll have won."

Blaine sighed. "Yes dad, metaphorical winning is great and all, but if we only win in _spirit_, then our club is going to be cut because Coach Sylvester is a psychopath."

"Coach Sylvester- isn't that your cheerleading coach?"

"Yes. She's a maniac. Don't worry about it."

"Didn't you two win Nationals for her? I think she owes you. Maybe you could talk to her-"

"And ask her not to destroy glee club?" Kurt finished incredulously. "I'm sorry Mr. Anderson, but you don't know Sue Sylvester."

"I could talk to her-"

"Dad-"

"Maybe I could call the show choir authorities-"

"God please no-"

"She seems far too biased-"

"We'll talk you her, okay? We'll deal with it. You don't have to do… things," Blaine assured him. As much as he appreciated his father's sudden desire to support him in all aspects of his life now, he did not need him getting involved in every one of his problems.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he replied emphatically.

* * *

"Coach Sylvester?" Blaine tentatively knocked on her office door with Kurt in tow. They'd just come from a cautiously optimistic glee club meeting, where Schue had announced they'd be performing Journey songs.

They decided to cover all their bases and still try and talk to Sue.

"What do you want, Blanderson?" she asked, looking up from her notes.

"Um, so Kurt and I heard that you're going to be a judge at Regionals," he began, taking a tentative step forward into the room.

"And you're going to beg me to take it easy on you?" she guessed, unimpressed.

Kurt lifted his chin, defaulting to his fighting pose. "We simply ask that you judge us no harsher than our competitors. I understand that your prejudice against our glee club is deep, but it's really important to us and-"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Lady Face," she cut in. She pointed her pen at the both of them. "We all know this is a waste of our time. I'm going to crush your glee club like an ant that's lost its legs, and two gay boys who have found happiness against all odds are not going to change that fact."

"But Coach Sylvester, we helped you win Nationals-"

"And you two didn't get beaten up while you were on the squad. Debt paid; you can't guilt me into being fair. I hope you're enjoying this week in the choir room, because it'll be your last. Now get the hell out of my office."

* * *

"Hair gel is _so_ classy. Come on, get over here."

"Yes Blaine, but there is a certain finesse that you sort of… lack," Kurt said delicately, ducking away from his gel-covered hands.

They were backstage at Regionals and Blaine was fretting over everybody's hair instead of fretting over the fact that they were probably going to lose.

"I don't know what you could possibly mean by that," he replied, patting his own hair self-assuredly.

"You just slather it on- look, you just got more gel on you and it just absorbed into your hair like it's returning to the mother ship-"

Blaine laughed. "Oh, but tell me what you _really_ think."

Kurt's mouth snapped shut, looking down apologetically. "I'm sorry. I'm just nervous."

Blaine reached out for his hand reassuringly, realizing belatedly that it was still covered in gel.

"Wanky," Santana said in passing.

"Come on," he rolled his eyes, leading Kurt to the small bathroom tucked away in the corner of the room.

"I really do like your hair," Kurt said quietly as they washed their hands in the cramped sink.

"I know," he winked at him in the mirror, bumping his hip with his. "Don't worry about it."

"But what if we don't win, Blaine?" he asked, turning to face him. "Glee club will be gone. We'll be losers _without_ a group of losers. We'll-"

"-still have each other," Blaine finished, leaning up to kiss him on the corner of the mouth. "And we can still sing in your room. Or we can start auditioning for community theatre. We'll manage, Kurt. Because we'll be together."

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Together."

"Always," he promised, holding his gaze.

"Guys," Mike slapped the doorframe. "Schue just gave us a pep talk and now it's time for us to perform. Hopefully you've pepped yourselves?"

Kurt nodded, smiling a little. "We're ready."

* * *

They got off stage at Regionals feeling psyched about how their performance went, and then Quinn's water broke and they all ran off to the hospital.

Mercedes, Puck, and her mom went into the room with her while the rest sat in the waiting room, keeping an eye on the clock so they'd get back in time for the announcing of the winner.

"Do you think we'll get to see the baby?" Blaine asked after a while.

Kurt lifted his eyes up from the magazine he was reading. "Oh, you're one of _those_ people, aren't you?"

"What people?" he asked, tilting his head to the side curiously.

"Those people who want children," he said in and unimpressed tone.

Blaine laughed. "I feel like most people want children."

"I don't," Santana butted in.

"Did anybody ask you, Satan?" Kurt snapped.

She rolled her eyes and went back to braiding Brittany's hair.

"You don't want kids?" Blaine asked, going back to their conversation as if they hadn't been interrupted.

He shrugged, making a face. "They just seem really loud and messy and kind of a hassle. But I'm sure you'll have the most infuriatingly adorable children to ever exist, so don't worry about it."

"Oh, but your kids will be the best-dressed kids in the world."

"Okay, so if our children are adorable as well as fashionable, I may be able to stand them," he relented with a huff, attention going back to his magazine.

Blaine stared at him with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"What?" Kurt asked after a moment. "I know I'm fabulous, but I'm just reading, Blaine. This is not exciting."

"You said _our_ children," he said delightedly.

His face went bright red. "I did not."

"You did, you said our adorable, fashionable children are going to play in the backyard with our dog-"

"And by 'dog', I hope you mean hypo-allergenic cat, because-"

"I love you," he sighed, overwhelmed by the feeling of falling more and more in love with him each day.

Kurt blinked at him, open-mouthed. "I- I love you, too."

Blaine grinned, a little thrill going up his spine at hearing the words he'd been thinking for weeks. He looked around the crowded waiting room, slightly disappointed. "I owe you a kiss later," he promised, cradling his face.

"Yeah you do," Kurt muttered, pressing his lips against his palm.

* * *

"And now, your 2010 Regional Show Choir Champions…" Sue began, microphone in one hand and envelope announcing the winners in the other.

_New Directions. New Directions. New Directions_, Blaine thought, fingers wrapped around Kurt's forearm tightly. _New Directions._

"Vocal Adrenaline!"

His heart dropped. The show choir next to them roared and cheered, jumping up and down as they were handed a trophy that was almost as big as Blaine.

He crowded closer to Kurt, wanting to remind himself that all was not lost. But he'd really thought that they were going to win. He thought their performance was stronger than Sue's vendetta against them.

But even she didn't look very triumphant. Maybe revenge wasn't too sweet when it was against a bunch of misfit high schoolers.

Kurt stroked the back of his neck where his hair was loose from the gel as he leaned his head against his shoulder.

* * *

Blaine was heading to the auditorium for one final glee performance when he saw Coach Sylvester, and he couldn't quite hold his tongue.

"I hope you're pleased with yourself, Coach," he said.

"What was that, Munchkin?" she asked, brow raised high.

"Glee club's over, so your mission is accomplished. You proved that Goliath beats David. That the little engine that could, _couldn't_. You beat the underdog. I know it's been a struggle but I'm sure you're happy now," he said with slightly more vitriol than he'd intended. "You don't have to deal with our horribly offensive singing anymore. Congratulations."

"Listen here, Caterpillar Brows," she snapped. "I didn't have anything to do with you losing that competition. Your pathetic faces somehow convinced me to vote you twerps in for first place. I didn't convince the rest of the judges to vote you down, okay? You just lost."

"What?"

"You heard me. Now scram!"

Blaine walked to the auditorium in a daze.

"What's wrong?" Kurt asked as he sat down on the stool next to him.

"Sue voted for us," Blaine said. "We still lost. But Sue voted for us."

"Should that make me happier or sadder?" he asked, face crumpled in confusion.

"I'm gonna say happier. We've had enough gloom, I think," he sighed, reaching between them to link their fingers together.

Kurt smiled a little and then Rachel walked in with Schuester and they all said where they'd been at the beginning of the year, just like they planned beforehand.

"I wasn't honest about who I was," Kurt said, looking adorable as ever in his sailor outfit. He peeked over at Blaine, grip tightening on his hand.

"I was resigned to years of misery," he admitted.

The others said their piece, and then they sang 'To Sir, With Love', thanking Schuester for all he'd done for them. Blaine may have severely questioned his teaching methods at times, but it wasn't like any other teachers had done what he did, putting in all the extra time and effort into helping them and making them feel like they belonged.

He'd always appreciate that, even if it had only been for a year.

* * *

The sun shone down on the members of New Directions as they left McKinley for the summer. They were the only people left in the parking lot, because everybody else had fled the property as soon as the last bell had rung. But the glee club had gotten some rather exciting news.

"See you next year!" Blaine called to Mike.

"In glee!" Kurt added.

"See you around, Kurt," Mercedes waved, arm in arm with Quinn.

"In glee!" Blaine said.

Kurt threw his arm around Blaine's shoulders, and said, "Bye Rachel."

"In glee!" Finn added, grinning like he'd said something clever.

They all laughed at him, heading their separate ways, but knowing that they'd reunite in September.

"Am I still coming over tonight?" Blaine asked Kurt.

"Yeah. And bring your dad, my dad still wants to meet him," he rolled his eyes.

"Ah, the beginnings of a glorious PFLAG," Blaine joked.

Kurt tilted his head, sunglasses flashing in the bright sunlight. "We could, you know."

"Hm?"

"Start one. It might do some good."

"It couldn't make anything any worse," he agreed. "And I think we can do basically anything at this point."

"Is that so?" Kurt asked as they stopped in front of his car.

Blaine nodded. "Well, we got glee club off the ground and running for another year. And there aren't even any competitions in PFLAG, so that's one obstacle out of the way."

"And if Figgins tries to reject it, my dad can come in and read him the riot act," Kurt concluded.

"Alright. So we're gonna make McKinley a more accepting place, one club at a time."

"Agreed."

"For now though, we have two glorious months of freedom. What do you want to do with them?" Blaine asked, resting his hands on Kurt's hips.

"I've got some ideas," he assured him.

"I do hope they involve me."

"Oh darling, they all involve you," he replied, booping him on the nose.

"And you?" he grinned.

"Yes. Us. Together," he said, squeezing him tight to his chest.

"Then I'm ready for anything."

**Thanks so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it, because I really enjoyed writing it. Um, I wrote BIOTA in this 'verse, and I fully intend to write a few more for season 2. It's already posted on my tumblr, but I wanna wait to post it here so the eps I post are chronological. I'm katranga over there, and I have way more stories posted there if you wanna check out more of my writing.**

**Comments are greatly appreciated :)**


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